THE KITE RUNNER 

 

by 

 

KHALED HOSSEINI 

 

Riverhead Books - New York 

 

Scanned and proofed by eReaderMan 

 

 

Posted to alt.binaries.e-book 

 

12/3/2005 - Plain Text Version 3.5 (maybe better) 

 

The author makes liberal use of _italics_ and I have missed noting many of them, 
but the rest of this text file should demonstrate good proofing. 

 

Copyright  2003 by Khaled Hosseini 

 

Riverhead trade paperback 

ISBN: 1-59488-000-1 

 

This book is dedicated to 

Haris and Farah, both 

the _noor_ of my eyes, 

and to the children 

of Afghanistan. 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

 

I am indebted to the following colleagues for their advice, assistance, or 
support: Dr. Alfred Lerner, Don Vakis, Robin Heck, Dr. Todd Dray, Dr. Robert 
Tull, and Dr. Sandy Chun. Thanks also to Lynette Parker of East San Jose 
Community Law Center for her advice about adoption procedures, and to Mr. Daoud 
Wahab for sharing his experiences in Afghanistan with me. I am grateful to my 
dear friend Tamim Ansary for his guidance and support and to the gang at the San 
Francisco Writers Workshop for their feed back and encouragement. I want to 
thank my father, my oldest friend and the inspiration for all that is noble in 
Baba; my mother who prayed for me and did nazr at every stage of this books 
writing; my aunt for buying me books when I was young. Thanks go out to Ali, 
Sandy, Daoud, Walid, Raya, Shalla, Zahra, Rob, and Kader for reading my stories. 
I want to thank Dr. and Mrs. Kayoumy--my other parents--for their warmth and 
unwavering support. 

 

I must thank my agent and friend, Elaine Koster, for her wisdom, patience, and 
gracious ways, as well as Cindy Spiegel, my keen-eyed and judicious editor who 
helped me unlock so many doors in this tale. And I would like to thank Susan 
Petersen Kennedy for taking a chance on this book and the hardworking staff at 
Riverhead for laboring over it. 

 

Last, I dont know how to thank my lovely wife, Roya--to whose opinion I am 
addicted--for her kindness and grace, and for reading, re-reading, and helping 
me edit every single draft of this novel. For your patience and understanding, I 
will always love you, Roya jan. 

 

ONE 


 

_December 2001_ 

 

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the 
winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud 
wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, 
but its wrong what they say about the past, Ive learned, about how you can 
bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have 
been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years. 

 

One day last summer, my friend Rahim Khan called from Pakistan. He asked me to 
come see him. Standing in the kitchen with the receiver to my ear, I knew it 
wasnt just Rahim Khan on the line. It was my past of unatoned sins. After I 
hung up, I went for a walk along Spreckels Lake on the northern edge of Golden 
Gate Park. The early-afternoon sun sparkled on the water where dozens of 
miniature boats sailed, propelled by a crisp breeze. Then I glanced up and saw a 
pair of kites, red with long blue tails, soaring in the sky. They danced high 
above the trees on the west end of the park, over the windmills, floating side 
by side like a pair of eyes looking down on San Francisco, the city I now call 
home. And suddenly Hassans voice whispered in my head: _For you, a thousand 
times over_. Hassan the harelipped kite runner. 

 

I sat on a park bench near a willow tree. I thought about something Rahim Khan 
said just before he hung up, almost as an after thought. _There is a way to be 
good again_. I looked up at those twin kites. I thought about Hassan. Thought 
about Baba. Ali. Kabul. I thought of the life I had lived until the winter of 
1975 came and changed everything. And made me what I am today. 

 

TWO 

 

When we were children, Hassan and I used to climb the poplar trees in the 
driveway of my fathers house and annoy our neighbors by reflecting sunlight 
into their homes with a shard of mirror. We would sit across from each other on 
a pair of high branches, our naked feet dangling, our trouser pockets filled 
with dried mulberries and walnuts. We took turns with the mirror as we ate 
mulberries, pelted each other with them, giggling, laughing; I can still see 
Hassan up on that tree, sunlight flickering through the leaves on his almost 
perfectly round face, a face like a Chinese doll chiseled from hardwood: his 
flat, broad nose and slanting, narrow eyes like bamboo leaves, eyes that looked, 
depending on the light, gold, green, even sapphire I can still see his tiny low-
set ears and that pointed stub of a chin, a meaty appendage that looked like it 
was added as a mere afterthought. And the cleft lip, just left of midline, where 
the Chinese doll makers instrument may have slipped; or perhaps he had simply 
grown tired and careless. 

 

Sometimes, up in those trees, I talked Hassan into firing walnuts with his 
slingshot at the neighbors one-eyed German shepherd. Hassan never wanted to, 
but if I asked, _really_ asked, he wouldnt deny me. Hassan never denied me 
anything. And he was deadly with his slingshot. Hassans father, Ali, used to 
catch us and get mad, or as mad as someone as gentle as Ali could ever get. He 
would wag his finger and wave us down from the tree. He would take the mirror 
and tell us what his mother had told him, that the devil shone mirrors too, 
shone them to distract Muslims during prayer. And he laughs while he does it, 
he always added, scowling at his son. 

 


Yes, Father, Hassan would mumble, looking down at his feet. But he never told 
on me. Never told that the mirror, like shooting walnuts at the neighbors dog, 
was always my idea. 

 

The poplar trees lined the redbrick driveway, which led to a pair of wrought-
iron gates. They in turn opened into an extension of the driveway into my 
fathers estate. The house sat on the left side of the brick path, the backyard 
at the end of it. 

 

Everyone agreed that my father, my Baba, had built the most beautiful house in 
the Wazir Akbar Khan district, a new and affluent neighborhood in the northern 
part of Kabul. Some thought it was the prettiest house in all of Kabul. A broad 
entryway flanked by rosebushes led to the sprawling house of marble floors and 
wide windows. Intricate mosaic tiles, handpicked by Baba in Isfahan, covered the 
floors of the four bathrooms. Gold-stitched tapestries, which Baba had bought in 
Calcutta, lined the walls; a crystal chandelier hung from the vaulted ceiling. 

 

Upstairs was my bedroom, Babas room, and his study, also known as the smoking 
room, which perpetually smelled of tobacco and cinnamon. Baba and his friends 
reclined on black leather chairs there after Ali had served dinner. They stuffed 
their pipes--except Baba always called it fattening the pipe--and discussed 
their favorite three topics: politics, business, soccer. Sometimes I asked Baba 
if I could sit with them, but Baba would stand in the doorway. Go on, now, 
hed say. This is grown-ups time. Why dont you go read one of those books of 
yours? Hed close the door, leave me to wonder why it was always grown-ups 
time with him. Id sit by the door, knees drawn to my chest. Sometimes I sat 
there for an hour, sometimes two, listening to their laughter, their chatter. 

 

The living room downstairs had a curved wall with custombuilt cabinets. Inside 
sat framed family pictures: an old, grainy photo of my grandfather and King 
Nadir Shah taken in 1931, two years before the kings assassination; they are 
standing over a dead deer, dressed in knee-high boots, rifles slung over their 
shoulders. There was a picture of my parents wedding night, Baba dashing in his 
black suit and my mother a smiling young princess in white. Here was Baba and 
his best friend and business partner, Rahim Khan, standing outside our house, 
neither one smiling--I am a baby in that photograph and Baba is holding me, 
looking tired and grim. Im in his arms, but its Rahim Khans pinky my fingers 
are curled around. 

 

The curved wall led into the dining room, at the center of which was a mahogany 
table that could easily sit thirty guests-- and, given my fathers taste for 
extravagant parties, it did just that almost every week. On the other end of the 
dining room was a tall marble fireplace, always lit by the orange glow of a fire 
in the wintertime. 

 

A large sliding glass door opened into a semicircular terrace that overlooked 
two acres of backyard and rows of cherry trees. Baba and Ali had planted a small 
vegetable garden along the eastern wall: tomatoes, mint, peppers, and a row of 
corn that never really took. Hassan and I used to call it the Wall of Ailing 
Corn. 

 

On the south end of the garden, in the shadows of a loquat tree, was the 
servants home, a modest little mud hut where Hassan lived with his father. 

 

It was there, in that little shack, that Hassan was born in the winter of 1964, 
just one year after my mother died giving birth to me. 

 


In the eighteen years that I lived in that house, I stepped into Hassan and 
Alis quarters only a handful of times. When the sun dropped low behind the 
hills and we were done playing for the day, Hassan and I parted ways. I went 
past the rosebushes to Babas mansion, Hassan to the mud shack where he had been 
born, where hed lived his entire life. I remember it was spare, clean, dimly 
lit by a pair of kerosene lamps. There were two mattresses on opposite sides of 
the room, a worn Herati rug with frayed edges in between, a three-legged stool, 
and a wooden table in the corner where Hassan did his drawings. The walls stood 
bare, save for a single tapestry with sewn-in beads forming the words _Allah-u-
akbar_. Baba had bought it for Ali on one of his trips to Mashad. 

 

It was in that small shack that Hassans mother, Sanaubar, gave birth to him one 
cold winter day in 1964. While my mother hemorrhaged to death during childbirth, 
Hassan lost his less than a week after he was born. Lost her to a fate most 
Afghans considered far worse than death: She ran off with a clan of traveling 
singers and dancers. 

 

Hassan never talked about his mother, as if shed never existed. I always 
wondered if he dreamed about her, about what she looked like, where she was. I 
wondered if he longed to meet her. Did he ache for her, the way I ached for the 
mother I had never met? One day, we were walking from my fathers house to 
Cinema Zainab for a new Iranian movie, taking the shortcut through the military 
barracks near Istiqlal Middle School--Baba had forbidden us to take that 
shortcut, but he was in Pakistan with Rahim Khan at the time. We hopped the 
fence that surrounded the barracks, skipped over a little creek, and broke into 
the open dirt field where old, abandoned tanks collected dust. A group of 
soldiers huddled in the shade of one of those tanks, smoking cigarettes and 
playing cards. One of them saw us, elbowed the guy next to him, and called 
Hassan. 

 

Hey, you! he said. I know you. 

 

We had never seen him before. He was a squatly man with a shaved head and black 
stubble on his face. The way he grinned at us, leered, scared me. Just keep 
walking, I muttered to Hassan. 

 

You! The Hazara! Look at me when Im talking to you! the soldier barked. He 
handed his cigarette to the guy next to him, made a circle with the thumb and 
index finger of one hand. Poked the middle finger of his other hand through the 
circle. Poked it in and out. In and out. I knew your mother, did you know that? 
I knew her real good. I took her from behind by that creek over there. 

 

The soldiers laughed. One of them made a squealing sound. I told Hassan to keep 
walking, keep walking. 

 

What a tight little sugary cunt she had! the soldier was saying, shaking hands 
with the others, grinning. Later, in the dark, after the movie had started, I 
heard Hassan next to me, croaking. Tears were sliding down his cheeks. I reached 
across my seat, slung my arm around him, pulled him close. He rested his head on 
my shoulder. He took you for someone else, I whispered. He took you for 
someone else. 

 

Im told no one was really surprised when Sanaubar eloped. People _had_ raised 
their eyebrows when Ali, a man who had memorized the Koran, married Sanaubar, a 
woman nineteen years younger, a beautiful but notoriously unscrupulous woman who 
lived up to her dishonorable reputation. Like Ali, she was a Shia Muslim and an 
ethnic Hazara. She was also his first cousin and therefore a natural choice for 


a spouse. But beyond those similarities, Ali and Sanaubar had little in common, 
least of all their respective appearances. While Sanaubars brilliant green eyes 
and impish face had, rumor has it, tempted countless men into sin, Ali had a 
congenital paralysis of his lower facial muscles, a condition that rendered him 
unable to smile and left him perpetually grimfaced. It was an odd thing to see 
the stone-faced Ali happy, or sad, because only his slanted brown eyes glinted 
with a smile or welled with sorrow. People say that eyes are windows to the 
soul. Never was that more true than with Ali, who could only reveal himself 
through his eyes. 

 

I have heard that Sanaubars suggestive stride and oscillating hips sent men to 
reveries of infidelity. But polio had left Ali with a twisted, atrophied right 
leg that was sallow skin over bone with little in between except a paper-thin 
layer of muscle. I remember one day, when I was eight, Ali was taking me to the 
bazaar to buy some _naan_. I was walking behind him, humming, trying to imitate 
his walk. I watched him swing his scraggy leg in a sweeping arc, watched his 
whole body tilt impossibly to the right every time he planted that foot. It 
seemed a minor miracle he didnt tip over with each step. When I tried it, I 
almost fell into the gutter. That got me giggling. Ali turned around, caught me 
aping him. He didnt say anything. Not then, not ever. He just kept walking. 

 

Alis face and his walk frightened some of the younger children in the 
neighborhood. But the real trouble was with the older kids. They chased him on 
the street, and mocked him when he hobbled by. Some had taken to calling him 
_Babalu_, or Boogeyman. 

 

Hey, Babalu, who did you eat today? they barked to a chorus of laughter. Who 
did you eat, you flat-nosed Babalu? 

 

They called him flat-nosed because of Ali and Hassans characteristic Hazara 
Mongoloid features. For years, that was all I knew about the Hazaras, that they 
were Mogul descendants, and that they looked a little like Chinese people. 
School text books barely mentioned them and referred to their ancestry only in 
passing. Then one day, I was in Babas study, looking through his stuff, when I 
found one of my mothers old history books. It was written by an Iranian named 
Khorami. I blew the dust off it, sneaked it into bed with me that night, and was 
stunned to find an entire chapter on Hazara history. An entire chapter dedicated 
to Hassans people! In it, I read that my people, the Pashtuns, had persecuted 
and oppressed the Hazaras. It said the Hazaras had tried to rise against the 
Pashtuns in the nineteenth century, but the Pashtuns had quelled them with 
unspeakable violence. The book said that my people had killed the Hazaras, 
driven them from their lands, burned their homes, and sold their women. The book 
said part of the reason Pashtuns had oppressed the Hazaras was that Pashtuns 
were Sunni Muslims, while Hazaras were Shia. The book said a lot of things I 
didnt know, things my teachers hadnt mentioned. Things Baba hadnt mentioned 
either. It also said some things I did know, like that people called Hazaras 
_mice-eating, flat-nosed, load-carrying donkeys_. I had heard some of the kids 
in the neighborhood yell those names to Hassan. 

 

The following week, after class, I showed the book to my teacher and pointed to 
the chapter on the Hazaras. He skimmed through a couple of pages, snickered, 
handed the book back. Thats the one thing Shia people do well, he said, 
picking up his papers, passing themselves as martyrs. He wrinkled his nose 
when he said the word Shia, like it was some kind of disease. 

 


But despite sharing ethnic heritage and family blood, Sanaubar joined the 
neighborhood kids in taunting Ali. I have heard that she made no secret of her 
disdain for his appearance. 

 

This is a husband? she would sneer. I have seen old donkeys better suited to 
be a husband. 

 

In the end, most people suspected the marriage had been an arrangement of sorts 
between Ali and his uncle, Sanaubars father. They said Ali had married his 
cousin to help restore some honor to his uncles blemished name, even though 
Ali, who had been orphaned at the age of five, had no worldly possessions or 
inheritance to speak of. 

 

Ali never retaliated against any of his tormentors, I suppose partly because he 
could never catch them with that twisted leg dragging behind him. But mostly 
because Ali was immune to the insults of his assailants; he had found his joy, 
his antidote, the moment Sanaubar had given birth to Hassan. It had been a 
simple enough affair. No obstetricians, no anesthesiologists, no fancy 
monitoring devices. Just Sanaubar lying on a stained, naked mattress with Ali 
and a midwife helping her. She hadnt needed much help at all, because, even in 
birth, Hassan was true to his nature: 

 

He was incapable of hurting anyone. A few grunts, a couple of pushes, and out 
came Hassan. Out he came smiling. 

 

As confided to a neighbors servant by the garrulous midwife, who had then in 
turn told anyone who would listen, Sanaubar had taken one glance at the baby in 
Alis arms, seen the cleft lip, and barked a bitter laughter. 

 

There, she had said. Now you have your own idiot child to do all your smiling 
for you! She had refused to even hold Hassan, and just five days later, she was 
gone. 

 

Baba hired the same nursing woman who had fed me to nurse Hassan. Ali told us 
she was a blue-eyed Hazara woman from Bamiyan, the city of the giant Buddha 
statues. What a sweet singing voice she had, he used to say to us. 

 

What did she sing, Hassan and I always asked, though we already knew--Ali had 
told us countless times. We just wanted to hear Ali sing. 

 

Hed clear his throat and begin: 

 

_On a high mountain I stood, 

And cried the name of Ali, Lion of God. 

O Ali, Lion of God, King of Men, 

Bring joy to our sorrowful hearts._ 

 

Then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood between people who had fed 
from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break. 

 

Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn 
in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words. 

 

Mine was _Baba_. 

 

His was _Amir_. My name. 

 


Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter 
of 1975--and all that followed--was already laid in those first words. 

 

THREE 

 

Lore has it my father once wrestled a black bear in Baluchistan with his bare 
hands. If the story had been about anyone else, it would have been dismissed as 
_laaf_, that Afghan tendency to exaggerate--sadly, almost a national affliction; 
if someone bragged that his son was a doctor, chances were the kid had once 
passed a biology test in high school. But no one ever doubted the veracity of 
any story about Baba. And if they did, well, Baba did have those three parallel 
scars coursing a jagged path down his back. I have imagined Babas wrestling 
match countless times, even dreamed about it. And in those dreams, I can never 
tell Baba from the bear. 

 

It was Rahim Khan who first referred to him as what eventually became Babas 
famous nickname, _Toophan agha_, or Mr. Hurricane. It was an apt enough 
nickname. My father was a force of nature, a towering Pashtun specimen with a 
thick beard, a wayward crop of curly brown hair as unruly as the man himself, 
hands that looked capable of uprooting a willow tree, and a black glare that 
would drop the devil to his knees begging for mercy, as Rahim Khan used to 
say. At parties, when all six-foot-five of him thundered into the room, 
attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun. 

 

Baba was impossible to ignore, even in his sleep. I used to bury cotton wisps in 
my ears, pull the blanket over my head, and still the sounds of Babas snoring--
so much like a growling truck engine--penetrated the walls. And my room was 
across the hall from Babas bedroom. How my mother ever managed to sleep in the 
same room as him is a mystery to me. Its on the long list of things I would 
have asked my mother if I had ever met her. 

 

In the late 1960s, when I was five or six, Baba decided to build an orphanage. I 
heard the story through Rahim Khan. He told me Baba had drawn the blueprints 
himself despite the fact that hed had no architectural experience at all. 
Skeptics had urged him to stop his foolishness and hire an architect. Of course, 
Baba refused, and everyone shook their heads in dismay at his obstinate ways. 
Then Baba succeeded and everyone shook their heads in awe at his triumphant 
ways. Baba paid for the construction of the two-story orphanage, just off the 
main strip of Jadeh Maywand south of the Kabul River, with his own money. Rahim 
Khan told me Baba had personally funded the entire project, paying for the 
engineers, electricians, plumbers, and laborers, not to mention the city 
officials whose mustaches needed oiling. 

 

It took three years to build the orphanage. I was eight by then. I remember the 
day before the orphanage opened, Baba took me to Ghargha Lake, a few miles north 
of Kabul. He asked me to fetch Hassan too, but I lied and told him Hassan had 
the runs. I wanted Baba all to myself. And besides, one time at Ghargha Lake, 
Hassan and I were skimming stones and Hassan made his stone skip eight times. 
The most I managed was five. Baba was there, watching, and he patted Hassan on 
the back. Even put his arm around his shoulder. 

 

We sat at a picnic table on the banks of the lake, just Baba and me, eating 
boiled eggs with _kofta_ sandwiches--meatballs and pickles wrapped in _naan_. 
The water was a deep blue and sunlight glittered on its looking glass-clear 
surface. On Fridays, the lake was bustling with families out for a day in the 
sun. But it was midweek and there was only Baba and me, us and a couple of 
longhaired, bearded tourists--hippies, Id heard them called. They were 


sitting on the dock, feet dangling in the water, fishing poles in hand. I asked 
Baba why they grew their hair long, but Baba grunted, didnt answer. He was 
preparing his speech for the next day, flipping through a havoc of handwritten 
pages, making notes here and there with a pencil. I bit into my egg and asked 
Baba if it was true what a boy in school had told me, that if you ate a piece of 
eggshell, youd have to pee it out. Baba grunted again. 

 

I took a bite of my sandwich. One of the yellow-haired tourists laughed and 
slapped the other one on the back. In the distance, across the lake, a truck 
lumbered around a corner on the hill. Sunlight twinkled in its side-view mirror. 

 

I think I have _saratan_, I said. Cancer. Baba lifted his head from the pages 
flapping in the breeze. Told me I could get the soda myself, all I had to do was 
look in the trunk of the car. 

 

Outside the orphanage, the next day, they ran out of chairs. A lot of people had 
to stand to watch the opening ceremony. It was a windy day, and I sat behind 
Baba on the little podium just outside the main entrance of the new building. 
Baba was wearing a green suit and a caracul hat. Midway through the speech, the 
wind knocked his hat off and everyone laughed. He motioned to me to hold his hat 
for him and I was glad to, because then everyone would see that he was my 
father, my Baba. He turned back to the microphone and said he hoped the building 
was sturdier than his hat, and everyone laughed again. When Baba ended his 
speech, people stood up and cheered. They clapped for a long time. Afterward, 
people shook his hand. Some of them tousled my hair and shook my hand too. I was 
so proud of Baba, of us. 

 

But despite Babas successes, people were always doubting him. They told Baba 
that running a business wasnt in his blood and he should study law like his 
father. So Baba proved them all wrong by not only running his own business but 
becoming one of the richest merchants in Kabul. Baba and Rahim Khan built a 
wildly successful carpet-exporting business, two pharmacies, and a restaurant. 

 

When people scoffed that Baba would never marry well--after all, he was not of 
royal blood--he wedded my mother, Sofia Akrami, a highly educated woman 
universally regarded as one of Kabuls most respected, beautiful, and virtuous 
ladies. And not only did she teach classic Farsi literature at the university 
she was a descendant of the royal family, a fact that my father playfully rubbed 
in the skeptics faces by referring to her as my princess. 

 

With me as the glaring exception, my father molded the world around him to his 
liking. The problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white. 
And he got to decide what was black and what was white. You cant love a person 
who lives that way without fearing him too. Maybe even hating him a little. 

 

When I was in fifth grade, we had a mullah who taught us about Islam. His name 
was Mullah Fatiullah Khan, a short, stubby man with a face full of acne scars 
and a gruff voice. He lectured us about the virtues of _zakat_ and the duty of 
_hadj_; he taught us the intricacies of performing the five daily _namaz_ 
prayers, and made us memorize verses from the Koran--and though he never 
translated the words for us, he did stress, sometimes with the help of a 
stripped willow branch, that we had to pronounce the Arabic words correctly so 
God would hear us better. He told us one day that Islam considered drinking a 
terrible sin; those who drank would answer for their sin on the day of 
_Qiyamat_, Judgment Day. In those days, drinking was fairly common in Kabul. No 
one gave you a public lashing for it, but those Afghans who did drink did so in 
private, out of respect. People bought their scotch as medicine in brown paper 


bags from selected pharmacies. They would leave with the bag tucked out of 
sight, sometimes drawing furtive, disapproving glances from those who knew about 
the stores reputation for such transactions. 

 

We were upstairs in Babas study, the smoking room, when I told him what Mullah 
Fatiullah Khan had taught us in class. Baba was pouring himself a whiskey from 
the bar he had built in the corner of the room. He listened, nodded, took a sip 
from his drink. Then he lowered himself into the leather sofa, put down his 
drink, and propped me up on his lap. I felt as if I were sitting on a pair of 
tree trunks. He took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose, the air hissing 
through his mustache for what seemed an eternity I couldnt decide whether I 
wanted to hug him or leap from his lap in mortal fear. 

 

I see youve confused what youre learning in school with actual education, he 
said in his thick voice. 

 

But if what he said is true then does it make you a sinner, Baba? 

 

Hmm. Baba crushed an ice cube between his teeth. Do you want to know what 
your father thinks about sin? 

 

Yes. 

 

Then Ill tell you, Baba said, but first understand this and understand it 
now, Amir: Youll never learn anything of value from those bearded idiots. 

 

You mean Mullah Fatiullah Khan? 

 

Baba gestured with his glass. The ice clinked. I mean all of them. Piss on the 
beards of all those self-righteous monkeys. 

 

I began to giggle. The image of Baba pissing on the beard of any monkey, self-
righteous or otherwise, was too much. 

 

They do nothing but thumb their prayer beads and recite a book written in a 
tongue they dont even understand. He took a sip. God help us all if 
Afghanistan ever falls into their hands. 

 

But Mullah Fatiullah Khan seems nice, I managed between bursts of tittering. 

 

So did Genghis Khan, Baba said. But enough about that. You asked about sin 
and I want to tell you. Are you listening? 

 

Yes, I said, pressing my lips together. But a chortle escaped through my nose 
and made a snorting sound. That got me giggling again. 

 

Babas stony eyes bore into mine and, just like that, I wasnt laughing anymore. 
I mean to speak to you man to man. Do you think you can handle that for once? 

 

Yes, Baba jan, I muttered, marveling, not for the first time, at how badly 
Baba could sting me with so few words. Wed had a fleeting good moment--it 
wasnt often Baba talked to me, let alone on his lap--and Id been a fool to 
waste it. 

 

Good, Baba said, but his eyes wondered. Now, no matter what the mullah 
teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is 
a variation of theft. Do you understand that? 


 

No, Baba jan, I said, desperately wishing I did. I didnt want to disappoint 
him again. 

 

Baba heaved a sigh of impatience. That stung too, because he was not an 
impatient man. I remembered all the times he didnt come home until after dark, 
all the times I ate dinner alone. Id ask Ali where Baba was, when he was coming 
home, though I knew full well he was at the construction site, overlooking this, 
supervising that. Didnt that take patience? I already hated all the kids he was 
building the orphanage for; sometimes I wished theyd all died along with their 
parents. 

 

When you kill a man, you steal a life, Baba said. You steal his wifes right 
to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal 
someones right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. 
Do you see? 

 

I did. When Baba was six, a thief walked into my grandfathers house in the 
middle of the night. My grandfather, a respected judge, confronted him, but the 
thief stabbed him in the throat, killing him instantly--and robbing Baba of a 
father. The townspeople caught the killer just before noon the next day; he 
turned out to be a wanderer from the Kunduz region. They hanged him from the 
branch of an oak tree with still two hours to go before afternoon prayer. It was 
Rahim Khan, not Baba, who had told me that story. I was always learning things 
about Baba from other people. 

 

There is no act more wretched than stealing, Amir, Baba said. A man who takes 
whats not his to take, be it a life or a loaf of _naan_... I spit on such a 
man. And if I ever cross paths with him, God help him. Do you understand? 

 

I found the idea of Baba clobbering a thief both exhilarating and terribly 
frightening. Yes, Baba. 

 

If theres a God out there, then I would hope he has more important things to 
attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork. Now, hop down. All this talk 
about sin has made me thirsty again. 

 

I watched him fill his glass at the bar and wondered how much time would pass 
before we talked again the way we just had. Because the truth of it was, I 
always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I _had_ killed 
his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadnt I? The least I could have done 
was to have had the decency to have turned out a little more like him. But I 
hadnt turned out like him. Not at all. 

 

 

IN SCHOOL, we used to play a game called _Sherjangi_, or Battle of the Poems. 
The Farsi teacher moderated it and it went something like this: You recited a 
verse from a poem and your opponent had sixty seconds to reply with a verse that 
began with the same letter that ended yours. Everyone in my class wanted me on 
their team, because by the time I was eleven, I could recite dozens of verses 
from Khayyam, Hfez, or Rumis famous _Masnawi_. One time, I took on the whole 
class and won. I told Baba about it later that night, but he just nodded, 
muttered, Good. 

 

That was how I escaped my fathers aloofness, in my dead mothers books. That 
and Hassan, of course. I read everything, Rumi, Hfez, Saadi, Victor Hugo, Jules 
Verne, Mark Twain, Ian Fleming. When I had finished my mothers books--not the 


boring history ones, I was never much into those, but the novels, the epics--I 
started spending my allowance on books. I bought one a week from the bookstore 
near Cinema Park, and stored them in cardboard boxes when I ran out of shelf 
room. 

 

Of course, marrying a poet was one thing, but fathering a son who preferred 
burying his face in poetry books to hunting... well, that wasnt how Baba had 
envisioned it, I suppose. Real men didnt read poetry--and God forbid they 
should ever write it! Real men--real boys--played soccer just as Baba had when 
he had been young. Now _that_ was something to be passionate about. In 1970, 
Baba took a break from the construction of the orphanage and flew to Tehran for 
a month to watch the World Cup games on television, since at the time 
Afghanistan didnt have TVs yet. He signed me up for soccer teams to stir the 
same passion in me. But I was pathetic, a blundering liability to my own team, 
always in the way of an opportune pass or unwittingly blocking an open lane. I 
shambled about the field on scraggy legs, squalled for passes that never came my 
way. And the harder I tried, waving my arms over my head frantically and 
screeching, Im open! Im open! the more I went ignored. But Baba wouldnt 
give up. When it became abundantly clear that I hadnt inherited a shred of his 
athletic talents, he settled for trying to turn me into a passionate spectator. 
Certainly I could manage that, couldnt I? I faked interest for as long as 
possible. I cheered with him when Kabuls team scored against Kandahar and 
yelped insults at the referee when he called a penalty against our team. But 
Baba sensed my lack of genuine interest and resigned himself to the bleak fact 
that his son was never going to either play or watch soccer. 

 

I remember one time Baba took me to the yearly _Buzkashi_ tournament that took 
place on the first day of spring, New Years Day. Buzkashi was, and still is, 
Afghanistans national passion. A _chapandaz_, a highly skilled horseman usually 
patronized by rich aficionados, has to snatch a goat or cattle carcass from the 
midst of a melee, carry that carcass with him around the stadium at full gallop, 
and drop it in a scoring circle while a team of other _chapandaz_ chases him and 
does everything in its power--kick, claw, whip, punch--to snatch the carcass 
from him. That day, the crowd roared with excitement as the horsemen on the 
field bellowed their battle cries and jostled for the carcass in a cloud of 
dust. The earth trembled with the clatter of hooves. We watched from the upper 
bleachers as riders pounded past us at full gallop, yipping and yelling, foam 
flying from their horses mouths. 

 

At one point Baba pointed to someone. Amir, do you see that man sitting up 
there with those other men around him? 

 

I did. 

 

Thats Henry Kissinger. 

 

Oh, I said. I didnt know who Henry Kissinger was, and I might have asked. But 
at the moment, I watched with horror as one of the _chapandaz_ fell off his 
saddle and was trampled under a score of hooves. His body was tossed and hurled 
in the stampede like a rag doll, finally rolling to a stop when the melee moved 
on. He twitched once and lay motionless, his legs bent at unnatural angles, a 
pool of his blood soaking through the sand. 

 

I began to cry. 

 

I cried all the way back home. I remember how Babas hands clenched around the 
steering wheel. Clenched and unclenched. Mostly, I will never forget Babas 


valiant efforts to conceal the disgusted look on his face as he drove in 
silence. 

 

Later that night, I was passing by my fathers study when I overheard him 
speaking to Rahim Khan. I pressed my ear to the closed door. 

 

--grateful that hes healthy, Rahim Khan was saying. 

 

I know, I know. But hes always buried in those books or shuffling around the 
house like hes lost in some dream. 

 

And? 

 

I wasnt like that. Baba sounded frustrated, almost angry. 

 

Rahim Khan laughed. Children arent coloring books. You dont get to fill them 
with your favorite colors. 

 

Im telling you, Baba said, I wasnt like that at all, and neither were any 
of the kids I grew up with. 

 

You know, sometimes you are the most self-centered man I know, Rahim Khan 
said. He was the only person I knew who could get away with saying something 
like that to Baba. 

 

It has nothing to do with that. 

 

Nay? 

 

Nay. 

 

Then what? 

 

I heard the leather of Babas seat creaking as he shifted on it. I closed my 
eyes, pressed my ear even harder against the door, wanting to hear, not wanting 
to hear. Sometimes I look out this window and I see him playing on the street 
with the neighborhood boys. I see how they push him around, take his toys from 
him, give him a shove here, a whack there. And, you know, he never fights back. 
Never. He just... drops his head and... 

 

So hes not violent, Rahim Khan said. 

 

Thats not what I mean, Rahim, and you know it, Baba shot back. There is 
something missing in that boy. 

 

Yes, a mean streak. 

 

Self-defense has nothing to do with meanness. You know what always happens when 
the neighborhood boys tease him? Hassan steps in and fends them off. Ive seen 
it with my own eyes. And when they come home, I say to him, How did Hassan get 
that scrape on his face? And he says, He fell down. Im telling you, Rahim, 
there is something missing in that boy. 

 

You just need to let him find his way, Rahim Khan said. 

 

And where is he headed? Baba said. A boy who wont stand up for himself 
becomes a man who cant stand up to anything. 


 

As usual youre oversimplifying. 

 

I dont think so. 

 

Youre angry because youre afraid hell never take over the business for you. 

 

Now whos oversimplifying? Baba said. Look, I know theres a fondness between 
you and him and Im happy about that. Envious, but happy. I mean that. He needs 
someone who...understands him, because God knows I dont. But something about 
Amir troubles me in a way that I cant express. Its like... I could see him 
searching, reaching for the right words. He lowered his voice, but I heard him 
anyway. If I hadnt seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, 
Id never believe hes my son. 

 

THE NEXT MORNING, as he was preparing my breakfast, Hassan asked if something 
was bothering me. I snapped at him, told him to mind his own business. 

 

Rahim Khan had been wrong about the mean streak thing. 

 

FOUR 

 

In 1933, the year Baba was born and the year Zahir Shah began his forty-year 
reign of Afghanistan, two brothers, young men from a wealthy and reputable 
family in Kabul, got behind the wheel of their fathers Ford roadster. High on 
hashish and _mast_ on French wine, they struck and killed a Hazara husband and 
wife on the road to Paghman. The police brought the somewhat contrite young men 
and the dead couples five-year-old orphan boy before my grandfather, who was a 
highly regarded judge and a man of impeccable reputation. After hearing the 
brothers account and their fathers plea for mercy, my grandfather ordered the 
two young men to go to Kandahar at once and enlist in the army for one year--
this despite the fact that their family had somehow managed to obtain them 
exemptions from the draft. Their father argued, but not too vehemently, and in 
the end, everyone agreed that the punishment had been perhaps harsh but fair. As 
for the orphan, my grandfather adopted him into his own household, and told the 
other servants to tutor him, but to be kind to him. That boy was Ali. 

 

Ali and Baba grew up together as childhood playmates--at least until polio 
crippled Alis leg--just like Hassan and I grew up a generation later. Baba was 
always telling us about the mischief he and Ali used to cause, and Ali would 
shake his head and say, But, Agha sahib, tell them who was the architect of the 
mischief and who the poor laborer? Baba would laugh and throw his arm around 
Ali. 

 

But in none of his stories did Baba ever refer to Ali as his friend. 

 

The curious thing was, I never thought of Hassan and me as friends either. Not 
in the usual sense, anyhow. Never mind that we taught each other to ride a 
bicycle with no hands, or to build a fully functional homemade camera out of a 
cardboard box. Never mind that we spent entire winters flying kites, running 
kites. Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a 
thin-boned frame, a shaved head, and low-set ears, a boy with a Chinese doll 
face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile. 

 

Never mind any of those things. Because history isnt easy to overcome. Neither 
is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he 
was Shia, and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing. 


 

But we were kids who had learned to crawl together, and no history, ethnicity, 
society, or religion was going to change that either. I spent most of the first 
twelve years of my life playing with Hassan. Sometimes, my entire childhood 
seems like one long lazy summer day with Hassan, chasing each other between 
tangles of trees in my fathers yard, playing hide-and-seek, cops and robbers, 
cowboys and Indians, insect torture--with our crowning achievement undeniably 
the time we plucked the stinger off a bee and tied a string around the poor 
thing to yank it back every time it took flight. 

 

We chased the _Kochi_, the nomads who passed through Kabul on their way to the 
mountains of the north. We would hear their caravans approaching our 
neighborhood, the mewling of their sheep, the _baa_ing of their goats, the 
jingle of bells around their camels necks. Wed run outside to watch the 
caravan plod through our street, men with dusty, weather-beaten faces and women 
dressed in long, colorful shawls, beads, and silver bracelets around their 
wrists and ankles. We hurled pebbles at their goats. We squirted water on their 
mules. Id make Hassan sit on the Wall of Ailing Corn and fire pebbles with his 
slingshot at the camels rears. 

 

We saw our first Western together, _Rio Bravo_ with John Wayne, at the Cinema 
Park, across the street from my favorite bookstore. I remember begging Baba to 
take us to Iran so we could meet John Wayne. Baba burst out in gales of his 
deepthroated laughter--a sound not unlike a truck engine revving up--and, when 
he could talk again, explained to us the concept of voice dubbing. Hassan and I 
were stunned. Dazed. John Wayne didnt really speak Farsi and he wasnt Iranian! 
He was American, just like the friendly, longhaired men and women we always saw 
hanging around in Kabul, dressed in their tattered, brightly colored shirts. We 
saw _Rio Bravo_ three times, but we saw our favorite Western, _The Magnificent 
Seven_, thirteen times. With each viewing, we cried at the end when the Mexican 
kids buried Charles Bronson--who, as it turned out, wasnt Iranian either. 

 

We took strolls in the musty-smelling bazaars of the Shar-e-Nau section of 
Kabul, or the new city, west of the Wazir Akbar Khan district. We talked about 
whatever film we had just seen and walked amid the bustling crowds of 
_bazarris_. We snaked our way among the merchants and the beggars, wandered 
through narrow alleys cramped with rows of tiny, tightly packed stalls. Baba 
gave us each a weekly allowance of ten Afghanis and we spent it on warm Coca-
Cola and rosewater ice cream topped with crushed pistachios. 

 

During the school year, we had a daily routine. By the time I dragged myself out 
of bed and lumbered to the bathroom, Hassan had already washed up, prayed the 
morning _namaz_ with Ali, and prepared my breakfast: hot black tea with three 
sugar cubes and a slice of toasted _naan_ topped with my favorite sour cherry 
marmalade, all neatly placed on the dining table. While I ate and complained 
about homework, Hassan made my bed, polished my shoes, ironed my outfit for the 
day, packed my books and pencils. Id hear him singing to himself in the foyer 
as he ironed, singing old Hazara songs in his nasal voice. Then, Baba and I 
drove off in his black Ford Mustang--a car that drew envious looks everywhere 
because it was the same car Steve McQueen had driven in _Bullitt_, a film that 
played in one theater for six months. Hassan stayed home and helped Ali with the 
days chores: hand-washing dirty clothes and hanging them to dry in the yard, 
sweeping the floors, buying fresh _naan_ from the bazaar, marinating meat for 
dinner, watering the lawn. 

 

After school, Hassan and I met up, grabbed a book, and trotted up a bowl-shaped 
hill just north of my fathers property in Wazir Akbar Khan. There was an old 


abandoned cemetery atop the hill with rows of unmarked headstones and tangles of 
brushwood clogging the aisles. Seasons of rain and snow had turned the iron gate 
rusty and left the cemeterys low white stone walls in decay. There was a 
pomegranate tree near the entrance to the cemetery. One summer day, I used one 
of Alis kitchen knives to carve our names on it: Amir and Hassan, the sultans 
of Kabul. Those words made it formal: the tree was ours. After school, Hassan 
and I climbed its branches and snatched its bloodred pomegranates. After wed 
eaten the fruit and wiped our hands on the grass, I would read to Hassan. 

 

Sitting cross-legged, sunlight and shadows of pomegranate leaves dancing on his 
face, Hassan absently plucked blades of grass from the ground as I read him 
stories he couldnt read for himself. That Hassan would grow up illiterate like 
Ali and most Hazaras had been decided the minute he had been born, perhaps even 
the moment he had been conceived in Sanaubars unwelcoming womb--after all, what 
use did a servant have for the written word? But despite his illiteracy, or 
maybe because of it, Hassan was drawn to the mystery of words, seduced by a 
secret world forbidden to him. I read him poems and stories, sometimes riddles--
though I stopped reading those when I saw he was far better at solving them than 
I was. So I read him unchallenging things, like the misadventures of the 
bumbling Mullah Nasruddin and his donkey. We sat for hours under that tree, sat 
there until the sun faded in the west, and still Hassan insisted we had enough 
daylight for one more story, one more chapter. 

 

My favorite part of reading to Hassan was when we came across a big word that he 
didnt know. Id tease him, expose his ignorance. One time, I was reading him a 
Mullah Nasruddin story and he stopped me. What does that word mean? 

 

Which one? 

 

Imbecile. 

 

You dont know what it means? I said, grinning. 

 

Nay, Amir agha. 

 

But its such a common word! 

 

Still, I dont know it. If he felt the sting of my tease, his smiling face 
didnt show it. 

 

Well, everyone in my school knows what it means, I said. Lets see. 
Imbecile. It means smart, intelligent. Ill use it in a sentence for you. 
When it comes to words, Hassan is an imbecile. 

 

Aaah, he said, nodding. 

 

I would always feel guilty about it later. So Id try to make up for it by 
giving him one of my old shirts or a broken toy. I would tell myself that was 
amends enough for a harmless prank. 

 

Hassans favorite book by far was the _Shahnamah_, the tenth-century epic of 
ancient Persian heroes. He liked all of the chapters, the shahs of old, 
Feridoun, Zal, and Rudabeh. But his favorite story, and mine, was Rostam and 
Sohrab, the tale of the great warrior Rostam and his fleet-footed horse, 
Rakhsh. Rostam mortally wounds his valiant nemesis, Sohrab, in battle, only to 
discover that Sohrab is his long-lost son. Stricken with grief, Rostam hears his 
sons dying words: 


 

If thou art indeed my father, then hast thou stained thy sword in the life-blood 
of thy son. And thou didst it of thine obstinacy. For I sought to turn thee unto 
love, and I implored of thee thy name, for I thought to behold in thee the 
tokens recounted of my mother. But I appealed unto thy heart in vain, and now is 
the time gone for meeting... 

 

Read it again please, Amir agha, Hassan would say. Sometimes tears pooled in 
Hassans eyes as I read him this passage, and I always wondered whom he wept 
for, the grief-stricken Rostam who tears his clothes and covers his head with 
ashes, or the dying Sohrab who only longed for his fathers love? Personally, I 
couldnt see the tragedy in Rostams fate. After all, didnt all fathers in 
their secret hearts harbor a desire to kill their sons? 

 

One day, in July 1973, I played another little trick on Hassan. I was reading to 
him, and suddenly I strayed from the written story. I pretended I was reading 
from the book, flipping pages regularly, but I had abandoned the text 
altogether, taken over the story, and made up my own. Hassan, of course, was 
oblivious to this. To him, the words on the page were a scramble of codes, 
indecipherable, mysterious. Words were secret doorways and I held all the keys. 
After, I started to ask him if hed liked the story, a giggle rising in my 
throat, when Hassan began to clap. 

 

What are you doing? I said. 

 

That was the best story youve read me in a long time, he said, still 
clapping. 

 

I laughed. Really? 

 

Really. 

 

Thats fascinating, I muttered. I meant it too. This was... wholly unexpected. 
Are you sure, Hassan? 

 

He was still clapping. It was great, Amir agha. Will you read me more of it 
tomorrow? 

 

Fascinating, I repeated, a little breathless, feeling like a man who discovers 
a buried treasure in his own backyard. Walking down the hill, thoughts were 
exploding in my head like the fireworks at _Chaman_. _Best story youve read me 
in a long time_, hed said. I had read him a _lot_ of stories. Hassan was asking 
me something. 

 

What? I said. 

 

What does that mean, fascinating? 

 

I laughed. Clutched him in a hug and planted a kiss on his cheek. 

 

What was that for? he said, startled, blushing. 

 

I gave him a friendly shove. Smiled. Youre a prince, Hassan. Youre a prince 
and I love you. 

 

That same night, I wrote my first short story. It took me thirty minutes. It was 
a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept 


into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been 
poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make 
himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so 
did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of 
pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wifes 
slain body in his arms. 

 

That evening, I climbed the stairs and walked into Babas smoking room, in my 
hands the two sheets of paper on which I had scribbled the story. Baba and Rahim 
Khan were smoking pipes and sipping brandy when I came in. 

 

What is it, Amir? Baba said, reclining on the sofa and lacing his hands behind 
his head. Blue smoke swirled around his face. His glare made my throat feel dry. 
I cleared it and told him Id written a story. 

 

Baba nodded and gave a thin smile that conveyed little more than feigned 
interest. Well, thats very good, isnt it? he said. Then nothing more. He 
just looked at me through the cloud of smoke. 

 

I probably stood there for under a minute, but, to this day, it was one of the 
longest minutes of my life. Seconds plodded by, each separated from the next by 
an eternity. Air grew heavy damp, almost solid. I was breathing bricks. Baba 
went on staring me down, and didnt offer to read. 

 

As always, it was Rahim Khan who rescued me. He held out his hand and favored me 
with a smile that had nothing feigned about it. May I have it, Amir jan? I 
would very much like to read it. Baba hardly ever used the term of endearment 
_jan_ when he addressed me. 

 

Baba shrugged and stood up. He looked relieved, as if he too had been rescued by 
Rahim Khan. Yes, give it to Kaka Rahim. Im going upstairs to get ready. And 
with that, he left the room. Most days I worshiped Baba with an intensity 
approaching the religious. But right then, I wished I could open my veins and 
drain his cursed blood from my body. 

 

An hour later, as the evening sky dimmed, the two of them drove off in my 
fathers car to attend a party. On his way out, Rahim Khan hunkered before me 
and handed me my story and another folded piece of paper. He flashed a smile and 
winked. For you. Read it later. Then he paused and added a single word that 
did more to encourage me to pursue writing than any compliment any editor has 
ever paid me. That word was _Bravo_. 

 

When they left, I sat on my bed and wished Rahim Khan had been my father. Then I 
thought of Baba and his great big chest and how good it felt when he held me 
against it, how he smelled of Brut in the morning, and how his beard tickled my 
face. I was overcome with such sudden guilt that I bolted to the bathroom and 
vomited in the sink. 

 

Later that night, curled up in bed, I read Rahim Khans note over and over. It 
read like this: 

 

Amir jan, 

 

I enjoyed your story very much. _Mashallah_, God has granted you a special 
talent. It is now your duty to hone that talent, because a person who wastes his 
God-given talents is a donkey. You have written your story with sound grammar 
and interesting style. But the most impressive thing about your story is that it 


has irony. You may not even know what that word means. But you will someday. It 
is something that some writers reach for their entire careers and never attain. 
You have achieved it with your first story. 

 

My door is and always will be open to you, Amir jan. I shall hear any story you 
have to tell. Bravo. 

 

Your friend, 

Rahim 

 

Buoyed by Rahim Khans note, I grabbed the story and hurried downstairs to the 
foyer where Ali and Hassan were sleeping on a mattress. That was the only time 
they slept in the house, when Baba was away and Ali had to watch over me. I 
shook Hassan awake and asked him if he wanted to hear a story. 

 

He rubbed his sleep-clogged eyes and stretched. Now? What time is it? 

 

Never mind the time. This storys special. I wrote it myself, I whispered, 
hoping not to wake Ali. Hassans face brightened. 

 

Then I _have_ to hear it, he said, already pulling the blanket off him. 

 

I read it to him in the living room by the marble fireplace. No playful straying 
from the words this time; this was about me! Hassan was the perfect audience in 
many ways, totally immersed in the tale, his face shifting with the changing 
tones in the story. When I read the last sentence, he made a muted clapping 
sound with his hands. 

 

_Mashallah_, Amir agha. Bravo! He was beaming. 

 

You liked it? I said, getting my second taste--and how sweet it was--of a 
positive review. 

 

Some day, _Inshallah_, you will be a great writer, Hassan said. And people 
all over the world will read your stories. 

 

You exaggerate, Hassan, I said, loving him for it. 

 

No. You will be great and famous, he insisted. Then he paused, as if on the 
verge of adding something. He weighed his words and cleared his throat. But 
will you permit me to ask a question about the story? he said shyly. 

 

Of course. 

 

Well... he started, broke off. 

 

Tell me, Hassan, I said. I smiled, though suddenly the insecure writer in me 
wasnt so sure he wanted to hear it. 

 

Well, he said, if I may ask, why did the man kill his wife? In fact, why did 
he ever have to feel sad to shed tears? Couldnt he have just smelled an onion? 

 

I was stunned. That particular point, so obvious it was utterly stupid, hadnt 
even occurred to me. I moved my lips soundlessly. It appeared that on the same 
night I had learned about one of writings objectives, irony, I would also be 
introduced to one of its pitfalls: the Plot Hole. Taught by Hassan, of all 
people. Hassan who couldnt read and had never written a single word in his 


entire life. A voice, cold and dark, suddenly whispered in my ear, _What does he 
know, that illiterate Hazara? Hell never be anything but a cook. How dare he 
criticize you?_ 

 

Well, I began. But I never got to finish that sentence. 

 

Because suddenly Afghanistan changed forever. 

 

FIVE 

 

Something roared like thunder. The earth shook a little and we heard the _rat-a-
tat-tat_ of gunfire. Father! Hassan cried. We sprung to our feet and raced out 
of the living room. We found Ali hobbling frantically across the foyer. 

 

Father! Whats that sound? Hassan yelped, his hands outstretched toward Ali. 
Ali wrapped his arms around us. A white light flashed, lit the sky in silver. It 
flashed again and was followed by a rapid staccato of gunfire. 

 

Theyre hunting ducks, Ali said in a hoarse voice. They hunt ducks at night, 
you know. Dont be afraid. 

 

A siren went off in the distance. Somewhere glass shattered and someone shouted. 
I heard people on the street, jolted from sleep and probably still in their 
pajamas, with ruffled hair and puffy eyes. Hassan was crying. Ali pulled him 
close, clutched him with tenderness. Later, I would tell myself I hadnt felt 
envious of Hassan. Not at all. 

 

We stayed huddled that way until the early hours of the morning. The shootings 
and explosions had lasted less than an hour, but they had frightened us badly, 
because none of us had ever heard gunshots in the streets. They were foreign 
sounds to us then. The generation of Afghan children whose ears would know 
nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunfire was not yet born. Huddled together 
in the dining room and waiting for the sun to rise, none of us had any notion 
that a way of life had ended. Our way of life. If not quite yet, then at least 
it was the beginning of the end. The end, the _official_ end, would come first 
in April 1978 with the communist coup dtat, and then in December 1979, when 
Russian tanks would roll into the very same streets where Hassan and I played, 
bringing the death of the Afghanistan I knew and marking the start of a still 
ongoing era of bloodletting. 

 

Just before sunrise, Babas car peeled into the driveway. His door slammed shut 
and his running footsteps pounded the stairs. Then he appeared in the doorway 
and I saw something on his face. Something I didnt recognize right away because 
Id never seen it before: fear. Amir! Hassan! he exclaimed as he ran to us, 
opening his arms wide. They blocked all the roads and the tele phone didnt 
work. I was so worried! 

 

We let him wrap us in his arms and, for a brief insane moment, I was glad about 
whatever had happened that night. 

 

 

THEY WERENT SHOOTING ducks after all. As it turned out, they hadnt shot much 
of anything that night of July 17, 1973. Kabul awoke the next morning to find 
that the monarchy was a thing of the past. The king, Zahir Shah, was away in 
Italy. In his absence, his cousin Daoud Khan had ended the kings forty-year 
reign with a bloodless coup. 

 


I remember Hassan and I crouching that next morning outside my fathers study, 
as Baba and Rahim Khan sipped black tea and listened to breaking news of the 
coup on Radio Kabul. 

 

Amir agha? Hassan whispered. 

 

What? 

 

Whats a republic? 

 

I shrugged. I dont know. On Babas radio, they were saying that word, 
republic, over and over again. 

 

Amir agha? 

 

What? 

 

Does republic mean Father and I will have to move away? 

 

I dont think so, I whispered back. 

 

Hassan considered this. Amir agha? 

 

What? 

 

I dont want them to send me and Father away. 

 

I smiled. _Bas_, you donkey. No ones sending you away. 

 

Amir agha? 

 

What? 

 

Do you want to go climb our tree? 

 

My smile broadened. That was another thing about Hassan. He always knew when to 
say the right thing--the news on the radio was getting pretty boring. Hassan 
went to his shack to get ready and I ran upstairs to grab a book. Then I went to 
the kitchen, stuffed my pockets with handfuls of pine nuts, and ran outside to 
find Hassan waiting for me. We burst through the front gates and headed for the 
hill. 

 

We crossed the residential street and were trekking through a barren patch of 
rough land that led to the hill when, suddenly, a rock struck Hassan in the 
back. We whirled around and my heart dropped. Assef and two of his friends, Wali 
and Kamal, were approaching us. 

 

Assef was the son of one of my fathers friends, Mahmood, an airline pilot. His 
family lived a few streets south of our home, in a posh, high-walled compound 
with palm trees. If you were a kid living in the Wazir Akbar Khan section of 
Kabul, you knew about Assef and his famous stainless-steel brass knuckles, 
hopefully not through personal experience. Born to a German mother and Afghan 
father, the blond, blue-eyed Assef towered over the other kids. His well-earned 
reputation for savagery preceded him on the streets. Flanked by his obeying 
friends, he walked the neighborhood like a Khan strolling through his land with 
his eager-to-please entourage. His word was law, and if you needed a little 
legal education, then those brass knuckles were just the right teaching tool. I 


saw him use those knuckles once on a kid from the Karteh-Char district. I will 
never forget how Assefs blue eyes glinted with a light not entirely sane and 
how he grinned, how he _grinned_, as he pummeled that poor kid unconscious. Some 
of the boys in Wazir Akbar Khan had nicknamed him Assef _Goshkhor_, or Assef 
the Ear Eater. Of course, none of them dared utter it to his face unless they 
wished to suffer the same fate as the poor kid who had unwittingly inspired that 
nickname when he had fought Assef over a kite and ended up fishing his right ear 
from a muddy gutter. Years later, I learned an English word for the creature 
that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: 

 

sociopath. 

 

Of all the neighborhood boys who tortured Ali, Assef was by far the most 
relentless. He was, in fact, the originator of the Babalu jeer, _Hey, Babalu, 
who did you eat today? Huh? Come on, Babalu, give us a smile!_ And on days when 
he felt particularly inspired, he spiced up his badgering a little, _Hey, you 
flat-nosed Babalu, who did you eat today? Tell us, you slant-eyed donkey!_ 

 

Now he was walking toward us, hands on his hips, his sneakers kicking up little 
puffs of dust. 

 

Good morning, _kunis_! Assef exclaimed, waving. Fag, that was another of his 
favorite insults. Hassan retreated behind me as the three older boys closed in. 
They stood before us, three tall boys dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Towering 
over us all, Assef crossed his thick arms on his chest, a savage sort of grin on 
his lips. Not for the first time, it occurred to me that Assef might not be 
entirely sane. It also occurred to me how lucky I was to have Baba as my father, 
the sole reason, I believe, Assef had mostly refrained from harassing me too 
much. 

 

He tipped his chin to Hassan. Hey, Flat-Nose, he said. How is Babalu? 

 

Hassan said nothing and crept another step behind me. 

 

Have you heard the news, boys? Assef said, his grin never faltering. The king 
is gone. Good riddance. Long live the president! My father knows Daoud Khan, did 
you know that, Amir? 

 

So does my father, I said. In reality, I had no idea if that was true or not. 

 

So does my father, Assef mimicked me in a whining voice. Kamal and Wali 
cackled in unison. I wished Baba were there. 

 

Well, Daoud Khan dined at our house last year, Assef went on. How do you like 
that, Amir? 

 

I wondered if anyone would hear us scream in this remote patch of land. Babas 
house was a good kilometer away. I wished wed stayed at the house. 

 

Do you know what I will tell Daoud Khan the next time he comes to our house for 
dinner? Assef said. Im going to have a little chat with him, man to man, 
_mard_ to _mard_. Tell him what I told my mother. About Hitler. Now, there was a 
leader. A great leader. 

 

A man with vision. Ill tell Daoud Khan to remember that if they had let Hitler 
finish what he had started, the world be a better place now 

 


Baba says Hitler was crazy, that he ordered a lot of innocent people killed, I 
heard myself say before I could clamp a hand on my mouth. 

 

Assef snickered. He sounds like my mother, and shes German; she should know 
better. But then they want you to believe that, dont they? They dont want you 
to know the truth. 

 

I didnt know who they were, or what truth they were hiding, and I didnt want 
to find out. I wished I hadnt said anything. I wished again Id look up and see 
Baba coming up the hill. 

 

But you have to read books they dont give out in school, Assef said. I have. 
And my eyes have been opened. Now I have a vision, and Im going to share it 
with our new president. Do you know what it is? 

 

I shook my head. Hed tell me anyway; Assef always answered his own questions. 

 

His blue eyes flicked to Hassan. Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns. It always 
has been, always will be. We are the true Afghans, the pure Afghans, not this 
Flat-Nose here. His people pollute our homeland, our watan. They dirty our 
blood. He made a sweeping, grandiose gesture with his hands. Afghanistan for 
Pashtuns, I say. Thats my vision. 

 

Assef shifted his gaze to me again. He looked like someone coming out of a good 
dream. Too late for Hitler, he said. But not for us. 

 

He reached for something from the back pocket of his jeans. Ill ask the 
president to do what the king didnt have the quwat to do. To rid Afghanistan of 
all the dirty, kasseef Hazaras. 

 

Just let us go, Assef, I said, hating the way my voice trembled. Were not 
bothering you. 

 

Oh, youre bothering me, Assef said. And I saw with a sinking heart what he 
had fished out of his pocket. Of course. His stainless-steel brass knuckles 
sparkled in the sun. Youre bothering me very much. In fact, you bother me more 
than this Hazara here. How can you talk to him, play with him, let him touch 
you? he said, his voice dripping with disgust. Wali and Kamal nodded and 
grunted in agreement. Assef narrowed his eyes. Shook his head. When he spoke 
again, he sounded as baffled as he looked. How can you call him your friend? 

 

_But hes not my friend!_ I almost blurted. _Hes my servant!_ Had I really 
thought that? Of course I hadnt. I hadnt. I treated Hassan well, just like a 
friend, better even, more like a brother. But if so, then why, when Babas 
friends came to visit with their kids, didnt I ever include Hassan in our 
games? Why did I play with Hassan only when no one else was around? 

 

Assef slipped on the brass knuckles. Gave me an icy look. Youre part of the 
problem, Amir. If idiots like you and your father didnt take these people in, 
wed be rid of them by now. Theyd all just go rot in Hazarajat where they 
belong. Youre a disgrace to Afghanistan. 

 

I looked in his crazy eyes and saw that he meant it. He _really_ meant to hurt 
me. Assef raised his fist and came for me. 

 

There was a flurry of rapid movement behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I 
saw Hassan bend down and stand up quickly. Assefs eyes flicked to something 


behind me and widened with surprise. I saw that same look ol astonishment on 
Kamal and Walis faces as they too saw what had happened behind me. 

 

I turned and came face to face with Hassans slingshot. Hassan had pulled the 
wide elastic band all the way back. In the cup was a rock the size of a walnut. 
Hassan held the slingshot pointed directly at Assefs face. His hand trembled 
with the strain of the pulled elastic band and beads of sweat had erupted on his 
brow. 

 

Please leave us alone, Agha, Hassan said in a flat tone. Hed referred to 
Assef as Agha, and I wondered briefly what it must be like to live with such 
an ingrained sense of ones place in a hierarchy. 

 

Assef gritted his teeth. Put it down, you motherless Hazara. 

 

Please leave us be, Agha, Hassan said. 

 

Assef smiled. Maybe you didnt notice, but there are three of us and two of 
you. 

 

Hassan shrugged. To an outsider, he didnt look scared. But Hassans face was my 
earliest memory and I knew all of its subtle nuances, knew each and every twitch 
and flicker that ever rippled across it. And I saw that he was scared. He was 
scared plenty. 

 

You are right, Agha. But perhaps you didnt notice that Im the one holding the 
slingshot. If you make a move, theyll have to change your nickname from Assef 
the Ear Eater to One-Eyed Assef, because I have this rock pointed at your 
left eye. He said this so flatly that even I had to strain to hear the fear 
that I knew hid under that calm voice. 

 

Assefs mouth twitched. Wali and Kamal watched this exchange with something akin 
to fascination. Someone had challenged their god. Humiliated him. And, worst of 
all, that someone was a skinny Hazara. Assef looked from the rock to Hassan. He 
searched Hassans face intently. What he found in it must have convinced him of 
the seriousness of Hassans intentions, because he lowered his fist. 

 

You should know something about me, Hazara, Assef said gravely. Im a very 
patient person. This doesnt end today, believe me. He turned to me. This 
isnt the end for you either, Amir. Someday, Ill make you face me one on one. 
Assef retreated a step. His disciples followed. 

 

Your Hazara made a big mistake today, Amir, he said. They then turned around, 
walked away. I watched them walk down the hill and disappear behind a wall. 

 

Hassan was trying to tuck the slingshot in his waist with a pair of trembling 
hands. His mouth curled up into something that was supposed to be a reassuring 
smile. It took him five tries to tie the string of his trousers. Neither one of 
us said much of anything as we walked home in trepidation, certain that Assef 
and his friends would ambush us every time we turned a corner. They didnt and 
that should have comforted us a little. But it didnt. Not at all. 

 

 

FOR THE NEXT COUPLE of years, the words _economic development_ and _reform_ 
danced on a lot of lips in Kabul. The constitutional monarchy had been 
abolished, replaced by a republic, led by a president of the republic. For a 


while, a sense of rejuvenation and purpose swept across the land. People spoke 
of womens rights and modern technology. 

 

And for the most part, even though a new leader lived in _Arg_--the royal palace 
in Kabul--life went on as before. People went to work Saturday through Thursday 
and gathered for picnics on Fridays in parks, on the banks of Ghargha Lake, in 
the gardens of Paghman. Multicolored buses and lorries filled with passengers 
rolled through the narrow streets of Kabul, led by the constant shouts of the 
driver assistants who straddled the vehicles rear bumpers and yelped directions 
to the driver in their thick Kabuli accent. On _Eid_, the three days of 
celebration after the holy month 

of Ramadan, Kabulis dressed in their best and newest clothes and visited their 
families. People hugged and kissed and greeted each other with _Eid Mubarak_. 
Happy Eid. Children opened gifts and played with dyed hard-boiled eggs. 

 

Early that following winter of 1974, Hassan and I were playing in the yard one 
day, building a snow fort, when Ali called him in. Hassan, Agha sahib wants to 
talk to you! He was standing by the front door, dressed in white, hands tucked 
under his armpits, breath puffing from his mouth. 

 

Hassan and I exchanged a smile. Wed been waiting for his call all day: It was 
Hassans birthday. What is it, Father, do you know? Will you tell us? Hassan 
said. His eyes were gleaming. 

 

Ali shrugged. Agha sahib hasnt discussed it with me. 

 

Come on, Ali, tell us, I pressed. Is it a drawing book? Maybe a new pistol? 

 

Like Hassan, Ali was incapable of lying. Every year, he pretended not to know 
what Baba had bought Hassan or me for our birthdays. And every year, his eyes 
betrayed him and we coaxed the goods out of him. This time, though, it seemed he 
was telling the truth. 

 

Baba never missed Hassans birthday. For a while, he used to ask Hassan what he 
wanted, but he gave up doing that because Hassan was always too modest to 
actually suggest a present. So every winter Baba picked something out himself. 
He bought him a Japanese toy truck one year, an electric locomotive and train 
track set another year. The previous year, Baba had surprised Hassan with a 
leather cowboy hat just like the one Clint Eastwood wore in _The Good, the Bad, 
and the Ugly_--which had unseated _The Magnificent Seven_ as our favorite 
Western. That whole winter, Hassan and I took turns wearing the hat, and belted 
out the films famous music as we climbed mounds of snow and shot each other 
dead. 

 

We took off our gloves and removed our snow-laden boots at the front door. When 
we stepped into the foyer, we found Baba sitting by the wood-burning cast-iron 
stove with a short, balding Indian man dressed in a brown suit and red tie. 

 

Hassan, Baba said, smiling coyly, meet your birthday present. 

 

Hassan and I traded blank looks. There was no gift-wrapped box in sight. No bag. 
No toy. Just Ali standing behind us, and Baba with this slight Indian fellow who 
looked a little like a mathematics teacher. 

 

The Indian man in the brown suit smiled and offered Hassan his hand. I am Dr. 
Kumar, he said. Its a pleasure to meet you. He spoke Farsi with a thick, 
rolling Hindi accent. 


 

_Salaam alaykum_, Hassan said uncertainly. He gave a polite tip of the head, 
but his eyes sought his father behind him. Ali moved closer and set his hand on 
Hassans shoulder. 

 

Baba met Hassans wary--and puzzled--eyes. I have summoned Dr. Kumar from New 
Delhi. Dr. Kumar is a plastic surgeon. 

 

Do you know what that is? the Indian man--Dr. Kumar-- said. 

 

Hassan shook his head. He looked to me for help but I shrugged. All I knew was 
that you went to a surgeon to fix you when you had appendicitis. I knew this 
because one of my classmates had died of it the year before and the teacher had 
told us they had waited too long to take him to a surgeon. We both looked to 
Ali, but of course with him you could never tell. His face was impassive as 
ever, though something sober had melted into his eyes. 

 

Well, Dr. Kumar said, my job is to fix things on peoples bodies. Sometimes 
their faces. 

 

Oh, Hassan said. He looked from Dr. Kumar to Baba to Ali. His hand touched his 
upper lip. Oh, he said again. 

 

Its an unusual present, I know, Baba said. And probably not what you had in 
mind, but this present will last you forever. 

 

Oh, Hassan said. He licked his lips. Cleared his throat. Agha sahib, will 
it... will it-- 

 

Nothing doing, Dr. Kumar intervened, smiling kindly. It will not hurt you one 
bit. In fact, I will give you a medicine and you will not remember a thing. 

 

Oh, Hassan said. He smiled back with relief. A little relief anyway. I wasnt 
scared, Agha sahib, I just... Hassan might have been fooled, but I wasnt. I 
knew that when doctors said it wouldnt hurt, thats when you knew you were in 
trouble. With dread, I remembered my circumcision the year prior. The doctor had 
given me the same line, reassured me it wouldnt hurt one bit. But when the 
numbing medicine wore off later that night, it felt like someone had pressed a 
red hot coal to my loins. Why Baba waited until I was ten to have me circumcised 
was beyond me and one of the things I will never forgive him for. 

 

I wished I too had some kind of scar that would beget Babas sympathy. It wasnt 
fair. Hassan hadnt done anything to earn Babas affections; hed just been born 
with that stupid harelip. 

 

The surgery went well. We were all a little shocked when they first removed the 
bandages, but kept our smiles on just as Dr. Kumar had instructed us. It wasnt 
easy, because Hassans upper lip was a grotesque mesh of swollen, raw tissue. I 
expected Hassan to cry with horror when the nurse handed him the mirror. Ali 
held his hand as Hassan took a long, thoughtful look into it. He muttered 
something I didnt understand. I put my ear to his mouth. He whispered it again. 

 

_Tashakor_. Thank you. 

 

Then his lips twisted, and, that time, I knew just what he was doing. He was 
smiling. Just as he had, emerging from his mothers womb. 

 


The swelling subsided, and the wound healed with time. Soon, it was just a pink 
jagged line running up from his lip. By the following winter, it was only a 
faint scar. Which was ironic. Because that was the winter that Hassan stopped 
smiling. 

 

SIX 

 

Winter. 

 

Here is what I do on the first day of snowfall every year: I step out of the 
house early in the morning, still in my pajamas, hugging my arms against the 
chill. I find the driveway, my fathers car, the walls, the trees, the rooftops, 
and the hills buried under a foot of snow. I smile. The sky is seamless and 
blue, the snow so white my eyes burn. I shovel a handful of the fresh snow into 
my mouth, lis ten to the muffled stillness broken only by the cawing of crows. I 
walk down the front steps, barefoot, and call for Hassan to come out and see. 

 

Winter was every kids favorite season in Kabul, at least those whose fathers 
could afford to buy a good iron stove. The reason was simple: They shut down 
school for the icy season. Winter to me was the end of long division and naming 
the capital of Bulgaria, and the start of three months of playing cards by the 
stove with Hassan, free Russian movies on Tuesday mornings at Cinema Park, sweet 
turnip _qurma_ over rice for lunch after a morning of building snowmen. 

 

And kites, of course. Flying kites. And running them. 

 

For a few unfortunate kids, winter did not spell the end of the school year. 
There were the so-called voluntary winter courses. No kid I knew ever 
volunteered to go to these classes; parents, of course, did the volunteering for 
them. Fortunately for me, Baba was not one of them. I remember one kid, Ahmad, 
who lived across the street from us. His father was some kind of doctor, I 
think. Ahmad had epilepsy and always wore a wool vest and thick blackrimmed 
glasses--he was one of Assefs regular victims. Every morning, I watched from my 
bedroom window as their Hazara servant shoveled snow from the driveway, cleared 
the way for the black Opel. I made a point of watching Ahmad and his father get 
into the car, Ahmad in his wool vest and winter coat, his schoolbag filled with 
books and pencils. I waited until they pulled away, turned the corner, then I 
slipped back into bed in my flannel pajamas. I pulled the blanket to my chin and 
watched the snowcapped hills in the north through the window. Watched them until 
I drifted back to sleep. 

 

I loved wintertime in Kabul. I loved it for the soft pattering of snow against 
my window at night, for the way fresh snow crunched under my black rubber boots, 
for the warmth of the cast-iron stove as the wind screeched through the yards, 
the streets. But mostly because, as the trees froze and ice sheathed the roads, 
the chill between Baba and me thawed a little. And the reason for that was the 
kites. Baba and I lived in the same house, but in different spheres of 
existence. Kites were the one paper thin slice of intersection between those 
spheres. 

 

 

EVERY WINTER, districts in Kabul held a kite-fighting tournament. And if you 
were a boy living in Kabul, the day of the tournament was undeniably the 
highlight of the cold season. I never slept the night before the tournament. Id 
roll from side to side, make shadow animals on the wall, even sit on the balcony 
in the dark, a blanket wrapped around me. I felt like a soldier trying to sleep 


in the trenches the night before a major battle. And that wasnt so far off. In 
Kabul, fighting kites was a little like going to war. 

 

As with any war, you had to ready yourself for battle. For a while, Hassan and I 
used to build our own kites. We saved our weekly allowances in the fall, dropped 
the money in a little porcelain horse Raba had brought one time from Herat. When 
the winds of winter began to blow and snow fell in chunks, we undid the snap 
under the horses belly. We went to the bazaar and bought bamboo, glue, string, 
and paper. We spent hours every day shaving bamboo for the center and cross 
spars, cutting the thin tissue paper which made for easy dipping and recovery 
And then, of course, we had to make our own string, or tar. If the kite was the 
gun, then _tar_, the glass-coated cutting line, was the bullet in the chamber. 
Wed go out in the yard and feed up to five hundred feet of string through a 
mixture of ground glass and glue. Wed then hang the line between the trees, 
leave it to dry. The next day, wed wind the battle-ready line around a wooden 
spool. By the time the snow melted and the rains of spring swept in, every boy 
in Kabul bore telltale horizontal gashes on his fingers from a whole winter of 
fighting kites. I remember how my classmates and I used to huddle, compare our 
battle scars on the first day of school. The cuts stung and didnt heal for a 
couple of weeks, but I didnt mind. They were reminders of a beloved season that 
had once again passed too quickly. Then the class captain would blow his whistle 
and wed march in a single file to our classrooms, longing for winter already, 
greeted instead by the specter of yet another long school year. 

 

But it quickly became apparent that Hassan and I were better kite fighters than 
kite makers. Some flaw or other in our design always spelled its doom. So Baba 
started taking us to Saifos to buy our kites. Saifo was a nearly blind old man 
who was a _moochi_ by profession--a shoe repairman. But he was also the citys 
most famous kite maker, working out of a tiny hovel on Jadeh Maywand, the 
crowded street south of the muddy banks of the Kabul River. I remember you had 
to crouch to enter the prison cell-sized store, and then had to lift a trapdoor 
to creep down a set of wooden steps to the dank basement where Saifo stored his 
coveted kites. Baba would buy us each three identical kites and spools of glass 
string. If I changed my mind and asked for a bigger and fancier kite, Baba would 
buy it for me--but then hed buy it for Hassan too. Sometimes I wished he 
wouldnt do that. Wished hed let me be the favorite. 

 

The kite-fighting tournament was an old winter tradition in Afghanistan. It 
started early in the morning on the day of the contest and didnt end until only 
the winning kite flew in the sky--I remember one year the tournament outlasted 
daylight. People gathered on sidewalks and roofs to cheer for their kids. The 
streets filled with kite fighters, jerking and tugging on their lines, squinting 
up to the sky, trying to gain position to cut the opponents line. Every kite 
fighter had an assistant--in my case, Hassan--who held the spool and fed the 
line. 

 

One time, a bratty Hindi kid whose family had recently moved into the 
neighborhood told us that in his hometown, kite fighting had strict rules and 
regulations. You have to play in a boxed area and you have to stand at a right 
angle to the wind, he said proudly. And you cant use aluminum to make your 
glass string. Hassan and I looked at each other. Cracked up. The Hindi kid 
would soon learn what the British learned earlier in the century, and what the 
Russians would eventually learn by the late 1980s: 

 

that Afghans are an independent people. Afghans cherish custom but abhor rules. 
And so it was with kite fighting. The rules were simple: No rules. Fly your 
kite. Cut the opponents. Good luck. 


 

Except that wasnt all. The real fun began when a kite was cut. That was where 
the kite runners came in, those kids who chased the windblown kite drifting 
through the neighborhoods until it came spiraling down in a field, dropping in 
someones yard, on a tree, or a rooftop. The chase got pretty fierce; hordes of 
kite runners swarmed the streets, shoved past each other like those people from 
Spain Id read about once, the ones who ran from the bulls. One year a 
neighborhood kid climbed a pine tree for a kite. A branch snapped under his 
weight and he fell thirty feet. Broke his back and never walked again. But he 
fell with the kite still in his hands. And when a kite runner had his hands on a 
kite, no one could take it from him. That wasnt a rule. That was custom. 

 

For kite runners, the most coveted prize was the last fallen kite of a winter 
tournament. It was a trophy of honor, something to be displayed on a mantle for 
guests to admire. When the sky cleared of kites and only the final two remained, 
every kite runner readied himself for the chance to land this prize. He 
positioned himself at a spot that he thought would give him a head start. Tense 
muscles readied themselves to uncoil. Necks craned. Eyes crinkled. Fights broke 
out. And when the last kite was cut, all hell broke loose. 

 

Over the years, I had seen a lot of guys run kites. But Hassan was by far the 
greatest kite runner Id ever seen. It was downright eerie the way he always got 
to the spot the kite would land before the kite did, as if he had some sort of 
inner compass. 

 

I remember one overcast winter day, Hassan and I were running a kite. I was 
chasing him through neighborhoods, hopping 

gutters, weaving through narrow streets. I was a year older than him, but Hassan 
ran faster than I did, and I was falling behind. 

 

Hassan! Wait! I yelled, my breathing hot and ragged. 

 

He whirled around, motioned with his hand. This way! he called before dashing 
around another corner. I looked up, saw that the direction we were running was 
opposite to the one the kite was drifting. 

 

Were losing it! Were going the wrong way! I cried out. 

 

Trust me! I heard him call up ahead. I reached the corner and saw Hassan 
bolting along, his head down, not even looking at the sky, sweat soaking through 
the back of his shirt. I tripped over a rock and fell--I wasnt just slower than 
Hassan but clumsier too; Id always envied his natural athieticism. When I 
staggered to my feet, I caught a glimpse of Hassan disappearing around another 
street corner. I hobbled after him, spikes of pain battering my scraped knees. 

 

I saw we had ended up on a rutted dirt road near Isteqial Middle School. There 
was a field on one side where lettuce grew in the summer, and a row of sour 
cherry trees on the other. I found Hassan sitting cross-legged at the foot of 
one of the trees, eating from a fistful of dried mulberries. 

 

What are we doing here? I panted, my stomach roiling with nausea. 

 

He smiled. Sit with me, Amir agha. 

 

I dropped next to him, lay on a thin patch of snow, wheezing. Youre wasting 
our time. It was going the other way, didnt you see? 

 


Hassan popped a mulberry in his mouth. Its coming, he said. I could hardly 
breathe and he didnt even sound tired. 

 

How do you know? I said. 

 

I know. 

 

How can you know? 

 

He turned to me. A few sweat beads rolled from his bald scalp. Would I ever lie 
to you, Amir agha? 

 

Suddenly I decided to toy with him a little. I dont know. Would you? 

 

Id sooner eat dirt, he said with a look of indignation. 

 

Really? Youd do that? 

 

He threw me a puzzled look. Do what? 

 

Eat dirt if I told you to, I said. I knew I was being cruel, like when Id 
taunt him if he didnt know some big word. But there was something fascinating--
albeit in a sick way--about teasing Hassan. Kind of like when we used to play 
insect torture. Except now, he was the ant and I was holding the magnifying 
glass. 

 

His eyes searched my face for a long time. We sat there, two boys under a sour 
cherry tree, suddenly looking, really looking, at each other. Thats when it 
happened again: Hassans face changed. Maybe not _changed_, not really, but 
suddenly I had the feeling I was looking at two faces, the one I knew, the one 
that was my first memory, and another, a second face, this one lurking just 
beneath the surface. Id seen it happen before--it always shook me up a little. 
It just appeared, this other face, for a fraction of a moment, long enough to 
leave me with the unsettling feeling that maybe Id seen it someplace before. 
Then Hassan blinked and it was just him again. Just Hassan. 

 

If you asked, I would, he finally said, looking right at me. I dropped my 
eyes. To this day, I find it hard to gaze directly at people like Hassan, people 
who mean every word they say. 

 

But I wonder, he added. Would you ever ask me to do such a thing, Amir agha? 
And, just like that, he had thrown at me his own little test. If I was going to 
toy with him and challenge his loyalty, then hed toy with me, test my 
integrity. 

 

I wished I hadnt started this conversation. I forced a smile. Dont be stupid, 
Hassan. You know I wouldnt. 

 

Hassan returned the smile. Except his didnt look forced. I know, he said. And 
thats the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone 
else does too. 

 

Here it comes, Hassan said, pointing to the sky. He rose to his feet and 
walked a few paces to his left. I looked up, saw the kite plummeting toward us. 
I heard footfalls, shouts, an approaching melee of kite runners. But they were 
wasting their time. Because Hassan stood with his arms wide open, smiling, 


waiting for the kite. And may God--if He exists, that is--strike me blind if the 
kite didnt just drop into his outstretched arms. 

 

 

IN THE WINTER OF 1975, I saw Hassan run a kite for the last time. 

 

Usually, each neighborhood held its own competition. But that year, the 
tournament was going to be held in my neighborhood, Wazir Akbar Khan, and 
several other districts--Karteh-Char, Karteh-Parwan, Mekro-Rayan, and Koteh-
Sangi--had been invited. You could hardly go anywhere without hearing talk of 
the upcoming tournament. Word had it this was going to be the biggest tournament 
in twenty-five years. 

 

One night that winter, with the big contest only four days away, Baba and I sat 
in his study in overstuffed leather chairs by the glow of the fireplace. We were 
sipping tea, talking. Ali had served dinner earlier--potatoes and curried 
cauliflower over rice--and had retired for the night with Hassan. Baba was 
fattening his pipe and I was asking him to tell the story about the winter a 
pack of wolves had descended from the mountains in Herat and forced everyone to 
stay indoors for a week, when he lit a match and said, casually, I think maybe 
youll win the tournament this year. What do you think? 

 

I didnt know what to think. Or what to say. Was that what it would take? Had he 
just slipped me a key? I was a good kite fighter. Actually, a very good one. A 
few times, Id even come close to winning the winter tournament--once, Id made 
it to the final three. But coming close wasnt the same as winning, was it? Baba 
hadnt _come close_. He had won because winners won and everyone else just went 
home. Baba was used to winning, winning at everything he set his mind to. Didnt 
he have a right to expect the same from his son? And just imagine. If I did 
win... 

 

Baba smoked his pipe and talked. I pretended to listen. But I couldnt listen, 
not really, because Babas casual little comment had planted a seed in my head: 
the resolution that I would win that winters tournament. I was going to win. 
There was no other viable option. I was going to win, and I was going to run 
that last kite. Then Id bring it home and show it to Baba. Show him once and 
for all that his son was worthy. Then maybe my life as a ghost in this house 
would finally be over. I let myself dream: I imagined conversation and laughter 
over dinner instead of silence broken only by the clinking of silverware and the 
occasional grunt. I envisioned us taking a Friday drive in Babas car to 
Paghman, stopping on the way at Ghargha Lake for some fried trout and potatoes. 
Wed go to the zoo to see Marjan the lion, and maybe Baba wouldnt yawn and 
steal looks at his wristwatch all the time. Maybe Baba would even read one of my 
stories. Id write him a hundred if I thought hed read one. Maybe hed call me 
Amir jan like Rahim Khan did. And maybe, just maybe, I would finally be pardoned 
for killing my mother. 

 

Baba was telling me about the time hed cut fourteen kites on the same day. I 
smiled, nodded, laughed at all the right places, but 

I hardly heard a word he said. I had a mission now. And I wasnt going to fail 
Baba. Not this time. 

 

 

IT SNOWED HEAVILY the night before the tournament. Hassan and I sat under the 
kursi and played panjpar as wind-rattled tree branches tapped on the window. 
Earlier that day, Id asked Ali to set up the kursi for us--which was basically 
an electric heater under a low table covered with a thick, quilted blanket. 


Around the table, he arranged mattresses and cushions, so as many as twenty 
people could sit and slip their legs under. Hassan and I used to spend entire 
snowy days snug under the kursi, playing chess, cards--mostly panjpar. 

 

I killed Hassans ten of diamonds, played him two jacks and a six. Next door, in 
Babas study, Baba and Rahim Khan were discussing business with a couple of 
other men-one of them I recognized as Assefs father. Through the wall, I could 
hear the scratchy sound of Radio Kabul News. 

 

Hassan killed the six and picked up the jacks. On the radio, Daoud Khan was 
announcing something about foreign investments. 

 

He says someday well have television in Kabul, I said. 

 

Who? 

 

Daoud Khan, you ass, the president. 

 

Hassan giggled. I heard they already have it in Iran, he said. I sighed. 
Those Iranians... For a lot of Hazaras, Iran represented a sanctuary of sorts-
-I guess because, like Hazaras, most Iranians were Shia Muslims. But I 
remembered something my teacher had said that summer about Iranians, that they 
were grinning smooth talkers who patted you on the back with one hand and picked 
your pocket with the other. I told Baba about that and he said my teacher was 
one of those jealous Afghans, jealous because Iran was a rising power in Asia 
and most people around the world couldnt even find Afghanistan on a world map. 
It hurts to say that, he said, shrugging. But better to get hurt by the truth 
than comforted with a lie. 

 

Ill buy you one someday, I said. 

 

Hassans face brightened. A television? In truth? 

 

Sure. And not the black-and-white kind either. Well probably be grown-ups by 
then, but Ill get us two. One for you and one for me. 

 

Ill put it on my table, where I keep my drawings, Hassan said. 

 

His saying that made me kind of sad. Sad for who Hassan was, where he lived. For 
how hed accepted the fact that hed grow old in that mud shack in the yard, the 
way his father had. I drew the last card, played him a pair of queens and a ten. 

 

Hassan picked up the queens. You know, I think youre going to make Agha sahib 
very proud tomorrow. 

 

You think so? 

 

_Inshallah_, he said. 

 

_Inshallah_,I echoed, though the God willing qualifier didnt sound as 
sincere coming from my lips. That was the thing with Hassan. He was so goddamn 
pure, you always felt like a phony around him. 

 

I killed his king and played him my final card, the ace of spades. He had to 
pick it up. Id won, but as I shuffled for a new game, I had the distinct 
suspicion that Hassan had let me win. 

 


Amir agha? 

 

What? 

 

You know... I _like_ where I live. He was always doing that, reading my mind. 
Its my home. 

 

Whatever, I said. Get ready to lose again. 

 

SEVEN 

 

The next morning, as he brewed black tea for breakfast, Hassan told me hed had 
a dream. We were at Ghargha Lake, you, me, Father, Agha sahib, Rahim Khan, and 
thousands of other people, he said. It was warm and sunny, and the lake was 
clear like a mirror. But no one was swimming because they said a monster had 
come to the lake. It was swimming at the bottom, waiting. 

 

He poured me a cup and added sugar, blew on it a few times. Put it before me. 
So everyone is scared to get in the water, and suddenly you kick off your 
shoes, Amir agha, and take off your shirt. Theres no monster, you say. Ill 
show you all. And before anyone can stop you, you dive into the water, start 
swimming away. I follow you in and were both swimming. 

 

But you cant swim. 

 

Hassan laughed. Its a dream, Amir agha, you can do anything. Anyway, everyone 
is screaming, Get out! Get out! but we just swim in the cold water. We make it 
way out to the middle of the lake and we stop swimming. We turn toward the shore 
and wave to the people. They look small like ants, but we can hear them 
clapping. They see now. There is no monster, just water. They change the name of 
the lake after that, and call it the Lake of Amir and Hassan, Sultans of 
Kabul, and we get to charge people money for swimming in it. 

 

So what does it mean? I said. 

 

He coated my _naan_ with marmalade, placed it on a plate. I dont know. I was 
hoping you could tell me. 

 

Well, its a dumb dream. Nothing happens in it. 

 

Father says dreams always mean something. 

 

I sipped some tea. Why dont you ask him, then? Hes so smart, I said, more 
curtly than I had intended. I hadnt slept all night. My neck and back were like 
coiled springs, and my eyes stung. Still, I had been mean to Hassan. I almost 
apologized, then didnt. Hassan understood I was just nervous. Hassan always 
understood about me. 

 

Upstairs, I could hear the water running in Babas bathroom. 

 

 

THE STREETS GLISTENED with fresh snow and the sky was a blameless blue. Snow 
blanketed every rooftop and weighed on the branches of the stunted mulberry 
trees that lined our street. Overnight, snow had nudged its way into every crack 
and gutter. I squinted against the blinding white when Hassan and I stepped 
through the wrought-iron gates. Ali shut the gates behind us. I heard him mutter 
a prayer under his breath--he always said a prayer when his son left the house. 


 

I had never seen so many people on our street. Kids were flinging snowballs, 
squabbling, chasing one another, giggling. Kite fighters were huddling with 
their spool holders, making lastminute preparations. From adjacent streets, I 
could hear laughter and chatter. Already, rooftops were jammed with spectators 
reclining in lawn chairs, hot tea steaming from thermoses, and the music of 
Ahmad Zahir blaring from cassette players. The immensely popular Ahmad Zahir had 
revolutionized Afghan music and outraged the purists by adding electric guitars, 
drums, and horns to the traditional tabla and harmonium; on stage or at parties, 
he shirked the austere and nearly morose stance of older singers and actually 
smiled when he sang--sometimes even at women. I turned my gaze to our rooftop, 
found Baba and Rahim Khan sitting on a bench, both dressed in wool sweaters, 
sipping tea. Baba waved. I couldnt tell if he was waving at me or Hassan. 

 

We should get started, Hassan said. He wore black rubber snow boots and a 
bright green chapan over a thick sweater and faded corduroy pants. Sunlight 
washed over his face, and, in it, I saw how well the pink scar above his lip had 
healed. 

 

Suddenly I wanted to withdraw. Pack it all in, go back home. What was I 
thinking? Why was I putting myself through this, when I already knew the 
outcome? Baba was on the roof, watching me. I felt his glare on me like the heat 
of a blistering sun. This would be failure on a grand scale, even for me. 

 

Im not sure I want to fly a kite today, I said. 

 

Its a beautiful day, Hassan said. 

 

I shifted on my feet. Tried to peel my gaze away from our rooftop. I dont 
know. Maybe we should go home. 

 

Then he stepped toward me and, in a low voice, said something that scared me a 
little. Remember, Amir agha. Theres no monster, just a beautiful day. How 
could I be such an open book to him when, half the time, I had no idea what was 
milling around in his head? I was the one who went to school, the one who could 
read, write. I was the smart one. Hassan couldnt read a firstgrade textbook but 
hed read me plenty. That was a little unsettling, but also sort of comfortable 
to have someone who always knew what you needed. 

 

No monster, I said, feeling a little better, to my own surprise. 

 

He smiled. No monster. 

 

Are you sure? 

 

He closed his eyes. Nodded. 

 

I looked to the kids scampering down the street, flinging snowballs. It is a 
beautiful day, isnt it? 

 

Lets fly, he said. 

 

It occurred to me then that maybe Hassan had made up his dream. Was that 
possible? I decided it wasnt. Hassan wasnt that smart. I wasnt that smart. 
But made up or not, the silly dream had lifted some of my anxiety. Maybe I 
should take off my shirt, take a swim in the lake. Why not? 

 


Lets do it, I said. 

 

Hassans face brightened. Good, he said. He lifted our kite, red with yellow 
borders, and, just beneath where the central and cross spars met, marked with 
Saifos unmistakable signature. He licked his finger and held it up, tested the 
wind, then ran in its direction-on those rare occasions we flew kites in the 
summer, hed kick up dust to see which way the wind blew it. The spool rolled in 
my hands until Hassan stopped, about fifty feet away. He held the kite high over 
his head, like an Olympic athlete showing his gold medal. I jerked the string 
twice, our usual signal, and Hassan tossed the kite. 

 

Caught between Baba and the mullahs at school, I still hadnt made up my mind 
about God. But when a Koran ayat I had learned in my diniyat class rose to my 
lips, I muttered it. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and pulled on the string. 
Within a minute, my kite was rocketing to the sky. It made a sound like a paper 
bird flapping its wings. Hassan clapped his hands, whistled, and ran back to me. 
I handed him the spool, holding on to the string, and he spun it quickly to roll 
the loose string back on. 

 

At least two dozen kites already hung in the sky, like paper sharks roaming for 
prey. Within an hour, the number doubled, and red, blue, and yellow kites glided 
and spun in the sky. A cold breeze wafted through my hair. The wind was perfect 
for kite flying, blowing just hard enough to give some lift, make the sweeps 
easier. Next to me, Hassan held the spool, his hands already bloodied by the 
string. 

 

Soon, the cutting started and the first of the defeated kites whirled out of 
control. They fell from the sky like shooting stars with brilliant, rippling 
tails, showering the neighborhoods below with prizes for the kite runners. I 
could hear the runners now, hollering as they ran the streets. Someone shouted 
reports of a fight breaking out two streets down. 

 

I kept stealing glances at Baba sitting with Rahim Khan on the roof, wondered 
what he was thinking. Was he cheering for me? Or did a part of him enjoy 
watching me fail? That was the thing about kite flying: Your mind drifted with 
the kite. 

 

They were coming down all over the place now, the kites, and I was still flying. 
I was still flying. My eyes kept wandering over to Baba, bundled up in his wool 
sweater. Was he surprised I had lasted as long as I had? You dont keep your 
eyes to the sky, you wont last much longer. I snapped my gaze back to the sky. 
A red kite was closing in on me--Id caught it just in time. I tangled a bit 
with it, ended up besting him when he became impatient and tried to cut me from 
below. 

 

Up and down the streets, kite runners were returning triumphantly, their 
captured kites held high. They showed them off to their parents, their friends. 
But they all knew the best was yet to come. The biggest prize of all was still 
flying. I sliced a bright yellow kite with a coiled white tail. It cost me 
another gash on the index finger and blood trickled down into my palm. I had 
Hassan hold the string and sucked the blood dry, blotted my finger against my 
jeans. 

 

Within another hour, the number of surviving kites dwindled from maybe fifty to 
a dozen. I was one of them. Id made it to the last dozen. I knew this part of 
the tournament would take a while, because the guys who had lasted this long 


were good--they wouldnt easily fall into simple traps like the old lift-and-
dive, Hassans favorite trick. 

 

By three oclock that afternoon, tufts of clouds had drifted in and the sun had 
slipped behind them. Shadows started to lengthen. The spectators on the roofs 
bundled up in scarves and thick coats. We were down to a half dozen and I was 
still flying. My legs ached and my neck was stiff. But with each defeated kite, 
hope grew in my heart, like snow collecting on a wall, one flake at a time. 

 

My eyes kept returning to a blue kite that had been wreaking havoc for the last 
hour. 

 

How many has he cut? I asked. 

 

I counted eleven, Hassan said. 

 

Do you know whose it might be? 

 

Hassan clucked his tongue and tipped his chin. That was a trademark Hassan 
gesture, meant he had no idea. The blue kite sliced a big purple one and swept 
twice in big loops. Ten minutes later, hed cut another two, sending hordes of 
kite runners racing after them. 

 

After another thirty minutes, only four kites remained. And I was still flying. 
It seemed I could hardly make a wrong move, as if every gust of wind blew in my 
favor. Id never felt so in command, so lucky It felt intoxicating. I didnt 
dare look up to the roof. Didnt dare take my eyes off the sky. I had to 
concentrate, play it smart. Another fifteen minutes and what had seemed like a 
laughable dream that morning had suddenly become reality: It was just me and the 
other guy. The blue kite. 

 

The tension in the air was as taut as the glass string I was tugging with my 
bloody hands. People were stomping their feet, clapping, whistling, chanting, 
Boboresh! Boboresh! Cut him! Cut him! I wondered if Babas voice was one of 
them. Music blasted. The smell of steamed mantu and fried pakora drifted from 
rooftops and open doors. 

 

But all I heard--all I willed myself to hear--was the thudding of blood in my 
head. All I saw was the blue kite. All I smelled was victory. Salvation. 
Redemption. If Baba was wrong and there was a God like they said in school, then 
Hed let me win. I didnt know what the other guy was playing for, maybe just 
bragging rights. But this was my one chance to become someone who was looked at, 
not seen, listened to, not heard. If there was a God, Hed guide the winds, let 
them blow for me so that, with a tug of my string, Id cut loose my pain, my 
longing. Id endured too much, come too far. And suddenly, just like that, hope 
became knowledge. I was going to win. It was just a matter of when. 

 

It turned out to be sooner than later. A gust of wind lifted my kite and I took 
advantage. Fed the string, pulled up. Looped my kite on top of the blue one. I 
held position. The blue kite knew it was in trouble. It was trying desperately 
to maneuver out of the jam, but I didnt let go. I held position. The crowd 
sensed the end was at hand. The chorus of Cut him! Cut him! grew louder, like 
Romans chanting for the gladiators to kill, kill! 

 

Youre almost there, Amir agha! Almost there! Hassan was panting. 

 


Then the moment came. I closed my eyes and loosened my grip on the string. It 
sliced my fingers again as the wind dragged it. And then... I didnt need to 
hear the crowds roar to know I didnt need to see either. Hassan was screaming 
and his arm was wrapped around my neck. 

 

Bravo! Bravo, Amir agha! 

 

I opened my eyes, saw the blue kite spinning wildly like a tire come loose from 
a speeding car. I blinked, tried to say something. Nothing came out. Suddenly I 
was hovering, looking down on myself from above. Black leather coat, red scarf, 
faded jeans. A thin boy, a little sallow, and a tad short for his twelve years. 
He had narrow shoulders and a hint of dark circles around his pale hazel eyes. 
The breeze rustled his light brown hair. He looked up to me and we smiled at 
each other. 

 

Then I was screaming, and everything was color and sound, everything was alive 
and good. I was throwing my free arm around Hassan and we were hopping up and 
down, both of us laughing, both of us weeping. You won, Amir agha! You won! 

 

We won! We won! was all I could say. This wasnt happening. In a moment, Id 
blink and rouse from this beautiful dream, get out of bed, march down to the 
kitchen to eat breakfast with no one to talk to but Hassan. Get dressed. Wait 
for Baba. Give up. Back to my old life. Then I saw Baba on our roof. He was 
standing on the edge, pumping both of his fists. Hollering and clapping. And 
that right there was the single greatest moment of my twelve years of life, 
seeing Baba on that roof, proud of me at last. 

 

But he was doing something now, motioning with his hands in an urgent way. Then 
I understood. Hassan, we-- 

 

I know, he said, breaking our embrace. _Inshallah_, well celebrate later. 
Right now, Im going to run that blue kite for you, he said. He dropped the 
spool and took off running, the hem of his green chapan dragging in the snow 
behind him. 

 

Hassan! I called. Come back with it! 

 

He was already turning the street corner, his rubber boots kicking up snow. He 
stopped, turned. He cupped his hands around his mouth. For you a thousand times 
over! he said. Then he smiled his Hassan smile and disappeared around the 
corner. The next time I saw him smile unabashedly like that was twenty-six years 
later, in a faded Polaroid photograph. 

 

I began to pull my kite back as people rushed to congratulate me. I shook hands 
with them, said my thanks. The younger kids looked at me with an awestruck 
twinkle in their eyes; I was a hero. Hands patted my back and tousled my hair. I 
pulled on the string and returned every smile, but my mind was on the blue kite. 

 

Finally, I had my kite in hand. I wrapped the loose string that had collected at 
my feet around the spool, shook a few more hands, and trotted home. When I 
reached the wrought-iron gates, Ali was waiting on the other side. He stuck his 
hand through the bars. Congratulations, he said. 

 

I gave him my kite and spool, shook his hand. Tashakor, Ali jan. 

 

I was praying for you the whole time. 

 


Then keep praying. Were not done yet. 

 

I hurried back to the street. I didnt ask Ali about Baba. I didnt want to see 
him yet. In my head, I had it all planned: Id make a grand entrance, a hero, 
prized trophy in my bloodied hands. Heads would turn and eyes would lock. Rostam 
and Sohrab sizing each other up. A dramatic moment of silence. Then the old 
warrior would walk to the young one, embrace him, acknowledge his worthiness. 
Vindication. Salvation. Redemption. And then? Well... happily ever after, of 
course. What else? 

 

The streets of Wazir Akbar Khan were numbered and set at right angles to each 
other like a grid. It was a new neighborhood then, still developing, with empty 
lots of land and half-constructed homes on every street between compounds 
surrounded by eight-foot walls. I ran up and down every street, looking for 
Hassan. Everywhere, people were busy folding chairs, packing food and utensils 
after a long day of partying. Some, still sitting on their rooftops, shouted 
their congratulations to me. 

 

Four streets south of ours, I saw Omar, the son of an engineer who was a friend 
of Babas. He was dribbling a soccer ball with his brother on the front lawn of 
their house. Omar was a pretty good guy. Wed been classmates in fourth grade, 
and one time hed given me a fountain pen, the kind you had to load with a 
cartridge. 

 

I heard you won, Amir, he said. Congratulations. 

 

Thanks. Have you seen Hassan? 

 

Your Hazara? 

 

I nodded. 

 

Omar headed the ball to his brother. I hear hes a great kite runner. His 
brother headed the ball back to him. Omar caught it, tossed it up and down. 
Although Ive always wondered how he manages. I mean, with those tight little 
eyes, how does he see anything? 

 

His brother laughed, a short burst, and asked for the ball. Omar ignored him. 

 

Have you seen him? 

 

Omar flicked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing southwest. I saw him running 
toward the bazaar awhile ago. 

 

Thanks. I scuttled away. 

 

By the time I reached the marketplace, the sun had almost sunk behind the hills 
and dusk had painted the sky pink and purple. A few blocks away, from the Haji 
Yaghoub Mosque, the mullah bellowed azan, calling for the faithful to unroll 
their rugs and bow their heads west in prayer. Hassan never missed any of the 
five daily prayers. Even when we were out playing, hed excuse himself, draw 
water from the well in the yard, wash up, and disappear into the hut. Hed come 
out a few minutes later, smiling, find me sitting against the wall or perched on 
a tree. He was going to miss prayer tonight, though, because of me. 

 

The bazaar was emptying quickly, the merchants finishing up their haggling for 
the day. I trotted in the mud between rows of closely packed cubicles where you 


could buy a freshly slaughtered pheasant in one stand and a calculator from the 
adjacent one. I picked my way through the dwindling crowd, the lame beggars 
dressed in layers of tattered rags, the vendors with rugs on their shoulders, 
the cloth merchants and butchers closing shop for the day. I found no sign of 
Hassan. 

 

I stopped by a dried fruit stand, described Hassan to an old merchant loading 
his mule with crates of pine seeds and raisins. He wore a powder blue turban. 

 

He paused to look at me for a long time before answering. I might have seen 
him. 

 

Which way did he go? 

 

He eyed me up and down. What is a boy like you doing here at this time of the 
day looking for a Hazara? His glance lingered admiringly on my leather coat and 
my jeans--cowboy pants, we used to call them. In Afghanistan, owning anything 
American, especially if it wasnt secondhand, was a sign of wealth. 

 

I need to find him, Agha. 

 

What is he to you? he said. I didnt see the point of his question, but I 
reminded myself that impatience wasnt going to make him tell me any faster. 

 

Hes our servants son, I said. 

 

The old man raised a pepper gray eyebrow. He is? Lucky Hazara, having such a 
concerned master. His father should get on his knees, sweep the dust at your 
feet with his eyelashes. 

 

Are you going to tell me or not? 

 

He rested an arm on the mules back, pointed south. I think I saw the boy you 
described running that way. He had a kite in his hand. A blue one. 

 

He did? I said. For you a thousand times over, hed promised. Good old Hassan. 
Good old reliable Hassan. Hed kept his promise and run the last kite for me. 

 

Of course, theyve probably caught him by now, the old merchant said, grunting 
and loading another box on the mules back. 

 

Who? 

 

The other boys, he said. The ones chasing him. They were dressed like you. 
He glanced to the sky and sighed. Now, run along, youre making me late for 
nainaz. 

 

But I was already scrambling down the lane. 

 

For the next few minutes, I scoured the bazaar in vain. Maybe the old merchants 
eyes had betrayed him. Except hed seen the blue kite. The thought of getting my 
hands on that kite... I poked my head behind every lane, every shop. No sign of 
Hassan. 

 

I had begun to worry that darkness would fall before I found Hassan when I heard 
voices from up ahead. Id reached a secluded, muddy road. It ran perpendicular 
to the end of the main thoroughfare bisecting the bazaar. I turned onto the 


rutted track and followed the voices. My boot squished in mud with every step 
and my breath puffed out in white clouds before me. The narrow path ran parallel 
on one side to a snow-filled ravine through which a stream may have tumbled in 
the spring. To my other side stood rows of snow-burdened cypress trees peppered 
among flat-topped clay houses--no more than mud shacks in most cases--separated 
by narrow alleys. 

 

I heard the voices again, louder this time, coming from one of the alleys. I 
crept close to the mouth of the alley. Held my breath. Peeked around the corner. 

 

Hassan was standing at the blind end of the alley in a defiant stance: fists 
curled, legs slightly apart. Behind him, sitting on piles of scrap and rubble, 
was the blue kite. My key to Babas heart. 

 

Blocking Hassans way out of the alley were three boys, the same three from that 
day on the hill, the day after Daoud Khans coup, when Hassan had saved us with 
his slingshot. Wali was standing on one side, Kamal on the other, and in the 
middle, Assef. I felt my body clench up, and something cold rippled up my spine. 
Assef seemed relaxed, confident. He was twirling his brass knuckles. The other 
two guys shifted nervously on their feet, looking from Assef to Hassan, like 
theyd cornered some kind of wild animal that only Assef could tame. 

 

Where is your slingshot, Hazara? Assef said, turning the brass knuckles in his 
hand. What was it you said? Theyll have to call you One-Eyed Assef. Thats 
right. One-Eyed Assef. That was clever. Really clever. Then again, its easy to 
be clever when youre holding a loaded weapon. 

 

I realized I still hadnt breathed out. I exhaled, slowly, quietly. I felt 
paralyzed. I watched them close in on the boy Id grown up with, the boy whose 
harelipped face had been my first memory. 

 

But today is your lucky day, Hazara, Assef said. He had his back to me, but I 
would have bet he was grinning. Im in a mood to forgive. What do you say to 
that, boys? 

 

Thats generous, Kamal blurted, Especially after the rude manners he showed 
us last time. He was trying to sound like Assef, except there was a tremor in 
his voice. Then I understood: 

 

He wasnt afraid of Hassan, not really. He was afraid because he had no idea 
what Assef had in mind. 

 

Assef waved a dismissive hand. Bakhshida. Forgiven. Its done. His voice 
dropped a little. Of course, nothing is free in this world, and my pardon comes 
with a small price. 

 

Thats fair, Kamal said. 

 

Nothing is free, Wali added. 

 

Youre a lucky Hazara, Assef said, taking a step toward Hassan. Because 
today, its only going to cost you that blue kite. A fair deal, boys, isnt it? 

 

More than fair, Kamal said. 

 


Even from where I was standing, I could see the fear creeping into Hassans 
eyes, but he shook his head. Amir agha won the tournament and I ran this kite 
for him. I ran it fairly. This is his kite. 

 

A loyal Hazara. Loyal as a dog, Assef said. Kamals laugh was a shrill, 
nervous sound. 

 

But before you sacrifice yourself for him, think about this: 

 

Would he do the same for you? Have you ever wondered why he never includes you 
in games when he has guests? Why he only plays with you when no one else is 
around? Ill tell you why, Hazara. Because to him, youre nothing but an ugly 
pet. Something he can play with when hes bored, something he can kick when hes 
angry. Dont ever fool yourself and think youre something more. 

 

Amir agha and I are friends, Hassan said. He looked flushed. 

 

Friends? Assef said, laughing. You pathetic fool! Someday youll wake up from 
your little fantasy and learn just how good of a friend he is. Now, bas! Enough 
of this. Give us that kite. 

 

Hassan stooped and picked up a rock. 

 

Assef flinched. He began to take a step back, stopped. Last chance, Hazara. 

 

Hassans answer was to cock the arm that held the rock. 

 

Whatever you wish. Assef unbuttoned his winter coat, took it off, folded it 
slowly and deliberately. He placed it against the wall. 

 

I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have 
turned out differently if I had. But I didnt. I just watched. Paralyzed. 

 

Assef motioned with his hand, and the other two boys separated, forming a half 
circle, trapping Hassan in the alley. 

 

Ive changed my mind, Assef said. Im letting you keep the kite, Hazara. Ill 
let you keep it so it will always remind you of what Im about to do. 

 

Then he charged. Hassan hurled the rock. It struck Assef in the forehead. Assef 
yelped as he flung himself at Hassan, knocking him to the ground. Wall and Kamal 
followed. 

 

I bit on my fist. Shut my eyes. 

 

 

A MEMORY: 

 

Did you know Hassan and you fed from the same breast? Did you know that, Amir 
agha? Sakina, her name was. She was a fair, blue-eyed Hazara woman from Bamiyan 
and she sang you old wedding songs. They say there is a brotherhood between 
people whove fed from the same breast. Did you know that? 

 

A memory: 

 


A rupia each, children. Just one rupia each and I will part the curtain of 
truth. The old man sits against a mud wall. His sightless eyes are like molten 
silver embedded in deep, twin craters. 

 

Hunched over his cane, the fortune-teller runs a gnarled hand across the surface 
of his deflated cheeks. Cups it before us. Not much to ask for the truth, is 
it, a rupia each? Hassan drops a coin in the leathery palm. I drop mine too. 
In the name of Allah most beneficent, most merciful, the old fortune-teller 
whispers. He takes Hassans hand first, strokes the palm with one hornlike 
fingernail, round and round, round and round. The finger then floats to Hassans 
face and makes a dry, scratchy sound as it slowly traces the curve of his 
cheeks, the outline of his ears. The calloused pads of his fingers brush against 
Hassans eyes. The hand stops there. Lingers. A shadow passes across the old 
mans face. Hassan and I exchange a glance. The old man takes Hassans hand and 
puts the rupia back in Hassans palm. He turns to me. How about you, young 
friend? he says. On the other side of the wall, a rooster crows. The old man 
reaches for my hand and I withdraw it. 

 

A dream: 

 

I am lost in a snowstorm. The wind shrieks, blows stinging sheets of snow into 
my eyes. I stagger through layers of shifting white. I call for help but the 
wind drowns my cries. I fall and lie panting on the snow, lost in the white, the 
wind wailing in my ears. I watch the snow erase my fresh footprints. Im a ghost 
now, I think, a ghost with no footprints. I cry out again, hope fading like my 
footprints. But this time, a muffled reply. I shield my eyes and manage to sit 
up. Out of the swaying curtains of snow, I catch a glimpse of movement, a flurry 
of color. A familiar shape materializes. A hand reaches out for me. I see deep, 
parallel gashes across the palm, blood dripping, staining the snow. I take the 
hand and suddenly the snow is gone. Were standing in afield of apple green 
grass with soft wisps of clouds drifting above. I look up and see the clear sky 
is filled with kites, green, yellow, red, orange. They shimmer in the afternoon 
light. 

 

A HAVOC OF SCRAP AND RUBBLE littered the alley. Worn bicycle tires, bottles with 
peeled labels, ripped up magazines, yellowed newspapers, all scattered amid a 
pile of bricks and slabs of cement. A rusted cast-iron stove with a gaping hole 
on its side tilted against a wall. But there were two things amid the garbage 
that I couldnt stop looking at: One was the blue kite resting against the wall, 
close to the cast-iron stove; the other was Hassans brown corduroy pants thrown 
on a heap of eroded bricks. 

 

I dont know, Wali was saying. My father says its sinful. He sounded 
unsure, excited, scared, all at the same time. Hassan lay with his chest pinned 
to the ground. Kamal and Wali each gripped an arm, twisted and bent at the elbow 
so that Hassans hands were pressed to his back. Assef was standing over them, 
the heel of his snow boots crushing the back of Hassans neck. 

 

Your father wont find out, Assef said. And theres nothing sinful about 
teaching a lesson to a disrespectful donkey. 

 

I dont know, Wali muttered. 

 

Suit yourself, Assef said. He turned to Kamal. What about you? 

 

I... well... 

 


Its just a Hazara, Assef said. But Kamal kept looking away. 

 

Fine, Assef snapped. All I want you weaklings to do is hold him down. Can you 
manage that? 

 

Wali and Kamal nodded. They looked relieved. 

 

Assef knelt behind Hassan, put his hands on Hassans hips and lifted his bare 
buttocks. He kept one hand on Hassans back and undid his own belt buckle with 
his free hand. He unzipped his jeans. Dropped his underwear. He positioned 
himself behind Hassan. Hassan didnt struggle. Didnt even whimper. He moved his 
head slightly and I caught a glimpse of his face. Saw the resignation in it. It 
was a look I had seen before. It was the look of the lamb. 

 

 

TOMORROW IS THE TENTH DAY of Dhul-Hijjah, the last month of the Muslim calendar, 
and the first of three days of Eid AlAdha, or Eid-e-Qorban, as Afghans call it--
a day to celebrate how the prophet Ibrahim almost sacrificed his own son for 
God. Baba has handpicked the sheep again this year, a powder white one with 
crooked black ears. 

 

We all stand in the backyard, Hassan, Ali, Baba, and I. The mullah recites the 
prayer, rubs his beard. Baba mutters, Get on with it, under his breath. He 
sounds annoyed with the endless praying, the ritual of making the meat halal. 
Baba mocks the story behind this Eid, like he mocks everything religious. But he 
respects the tradition of Eid-e-Qorban. The custom is to divide the meat in 
thirds, one for the family, one for friends, and one for the poor. Every year, 
Baba gives it all to the poor. The rich are fat enough already, he says. 

 

The mullah finishes the prayer. Ameen. He picks up the kitchen knife with the 
long blade. The custom is to not let the sheep see the knife. All feeds the 
animal a cube of sugar--another custom, to make death sweeter. The sheep kicks, 
but not much. The mullah grabs it under its jaw and places the blade on its 
neck. Just a second before he slices the throat in one expert motion, I see the 
sheeps eyes. It is a look that will haunt my dreams for weeks. I dont know why 
I watch this yearly ritual in our backyard; my nightmares persist long after the 
bloodstains on the grass have faded. But I always watch. I watch because of that 
look of acceptance in the animals eyes. Absurdly, I imagine the animal 
understands. I imagine the animal sees that its imminent demise is for a higher 
purpose. This is the look... 

 

 

I STOPPED WATCHING, turned away from the alley. Something warm was running down 
my wrist. I blinked, saw I was still biting down on my fist, hard enough to draw 
blood from the knuckles. I realized something else. I was weeping. From just 
around the corner, I could hear Assefs quick, rhythmic grunts. 

 

I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I 
was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan--the way hed 
stood up for me all those times in the past--and accept whatever would happen to 
me. Or I could run. 

 

In the end, I ran. 

 

I ran because I was a coward. I was afraid of Assef and what he would do to me. 
I was afraid of getting hurt. Thats what I told myself as I turned my back to 
the alley, to Hassan. Thats what I made myself believe. I actually aspired to 


cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that 
Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I 
had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba. Was it a fair price? The answer 
floated to my conscious mind before I could thwart it: He was just a Hazara, 
wasnt he? 

 

I ran back the way Id come. Ran back to the all but deserted bazaar. I lurched 
to a cubicle and leaned against the padlocked swinging doors. I stood there 
panting, sweating, wishing things had turned out some other way. 

 

About fifteen minutes later, I heard voices and running footfalls. I crouched 
behind the cubicle and watched Assef and the other two sprinting by, laughing as 
they hurried down the deserted 

lane. I forced myself to wait ten more minutes. Then I walked back to the rutted 
track that ran along the snow-filled ravine. I squinted in the dimming light and 
spotted Hassan walking slowly toward me. I met him by a leafless birch tree on 
the edge of the ravine. 

 

He had the blue kite in his hands; that was the first thing I saw. And I cant 
lie now and say my eyes didnt scan it for any rips. His chapan had mud smudges 
down the front and his shirt was ripped just below the collar. He stopped. 
Swayed on his feet like he was going to collapse. Then he steadied himself. 
Handed me the kite. 

 

Where were you? I looked for you, I said. Speaking those words was like 
chewing on a rock. 

 

Hassan dragged a sleeve across his face, wiped snot and tears. I waited for him 
to say something, but we just stood there in silence, in the fading light. I was 
grateful for the early-evening shadows that fell on Hassans face and concealed 
mine. I was glad I didnt have to return his gaze. Did he know I knew? And if he 
knew, then what would I see if I did look in his eyes? Blame? Indignation? Or, 
God forbid, what I feared most: guileless devotion? That, most of all, I 
couldnt bear to see. 

 

He began to say something and his voice cracked. He closed his mouth, opened it, 
and closed it again. Took a step back. Wiped his face. And that was as close as 
Hassan and I ever came to discussing what had happened in the alley. I thought 
he might burst into tears, but, to my relief, he didnt, and I pretended I 
hadnt heard the crack in his voice. Just like I pretended I hadnt seen the 
dark stain in the seat of his pants. Or those tiny drops that fell from between 
his legs and stained the snow black. 

 

Agha sahib will worry, was all he said. He turned from me and limped away. 

 

IT HAPPENED JUST THE WAY Id imagined. I opened the door to the smoky study and 
stepped in. Baba and Rahim Khan were drinking tea and listening to the news 
crackling on the radio. Their heads turned. Then a smile played on my fathers 
lips. He opened his arms. I put the kite down and walked into his thick hairy 
arms. I buried my face in the warmth of his chest and wept. Baba held me close 
to him, rocking me back and forth. In his arms, I forgot what Id done. And that 
was good. 

 

EIGHT 

 

For a week, I barely saw Hassan. I woke up to find toasted bread, brewed tea, 
and a boiled egg already on the kitchen table. My clothes for the day were 


ironed and folded, left on the cane-seat chair in the foyer where Hassan usually 
did his ironing. He used to wait for me to sit at the breakfast table before he 
started ironing--that way, we could talk. Used to sing too, over the hissing of 
the iron, sang old Hazara songs about tulip fields. Now only the folded clothes 
greeted me. That, and a breakfast I hardly finished anymore. 

 

One overcast morning, as I was pushing the boiled egg around on my plate, Ali 
walked in cradling a pile of chopped wood. I asked him where Hassan was. 

 

He went back to sleep, Ali said, kneeling before the stove. He pulled the 
little square door open. 

 

Would Hassan be able to play today? 

 

Ali paused with a log in his hand. A worried look crossed his face. Lately, it 
seems all he wants to do is sleep. He does his chores--I see to that--but then 
he just wants to crawl under his blanket. Can I ask you something? 

 

If you have to. 

 

After that kite tournament, he came home a little bloodied and his shirt was 
torn. I asked him what had happened and he said it was nothing, that hed gotten 
into a little scuffle with some kids over the kite. 

 

I didnt say anything. Just kept pushing the egg around on my plate. 

 

Did something happen to him, Amir agha? Something hes not telling me? 

 

I shrugged. How should I know? 

 

You would tell me, nay? _Inshallah_, you would tell me if some thing had 
happened? 

 

Like I said, how should I know whats wrong with him? I snapped. Maybe hes 
sick. People get sick all the time, Ali. Now, am I going to freeze to death or 
are you planning on lighting the stove today? 

 

 

THAT NIGHT I asked Baba if we could go to Jalalabad on Friday. He was rocking on 
the leather swivel chair behind his desk, reading a newspaper. He put it down, 
took off the reading glasses I disliked so much--Baba wasnt old, not at all, 
and he had lots of years left to live, so why did he have to wear those stupid 
glasses? 

 

Why not! he said. Lately, Baba agreed to everything I asked. Not only that, 
just two nights before, hed asked me if I wanted to see _El Cid_ with Charlton 
Heston at Cinema Aryana. Do you want to ask Hassan to come along to Jalalabad? 

 

Why did Baba have to spoil it like that? Hes mazreez, I said. Not feeling 
well. 

 

Really? Baba stopped rocking in his chair. Whats wrong with him? 

 

I gave a shrug and sank in the sofa by the fireplace. Hes got a cold or 
something. Ali says hes sleeping it off. 

 


I havent seen much of Hassan the last few days, Baba said. Thats all it is, 
then, a cold? I couldnt help hating the way his brow furrowed with worry. 

 

Just a cold. So are we going Friday, Baba? 

 

Yes, yes, Baba said, pushing away from the desk. Too bad about Hassan. I 
thought you might have had more fun if he came. 

 

Well, the two of us can have fun together, I said. Baba smiled. Winked. Dress 
warm, he said. 

 

 

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN just the two of us--that was the way, I wanted it--but by 
Wednesday night, Baba had managed to invite another two dozen people. He called 
his cousin Homayoun--he was actually Babas second cousin--and mentioned he was 
going to Jalalabad on Friday, and Homayoun, who had studied engineering in 
France and had a house in Jalalabad, said hed love to have everyone over, hed 
bring the kids, his two wives, and, while he was at it, cousin Shafiqa and her 
family were visiting from Herat, maybe shed like to tag along, and since she 
was staying with cousin Nader in Kabul, his family would have to be invited as 
well even though Homayoun and Nader had a bit of a feud going, and if Nader was 
invited, surely his brother Faruq had to be asked too or his feelings would be 
hurt and he might not invite them to his daughters wedding next month and... 

 

We filled three vans. I rode with Baba, Rahim Khan, Kaka Homayoun--Baba had 
taught me at a young age to call any older male Kaka, or Uncle, and any older 
female, Khala, or Aunt. Kaka Homayouns two wives rode with us too--the pinch-
faced older one with the warts on her hands and the younger one who always 
smelled of perfume and danced with her eyes close--as did Kaka Homayouns twin 
girls. I sat in the back row, carsick and dizzy, sandwiched between the seven-
year-old twins who kept reaching over my lap to slap at each other. The road to 
Jalalabad is a two-hour trek through mountain roads winding along a steep drop, 
and my stomach lurched with each hairpin turn. Everyone in the van was talking, 
talking loudly and at the same time, nearly shrieking, which is how Afghans 
talk. I asked one of the twins--Fazila or Karima, I could never tell which was 
which--if shed trade her window seat with me so I could get fresh air on 
account of my car sickness. She stuck her tongue out and said no. I told her 
that was fine, but I couldnt be held accountable for vomiting on her new dress. 
A minute later, I was leaning out the window. I watched the cratered road rise 
and fall, whirl its tail around the mountainside, counted the multicolored 
trucks packed with squatting men lumbering past. I tried closing my eyes, 
letting the wind slap at my cheeks, opened my mouth to swallow the clean air. I 
still didnt feel better. A finger poked me in the side. It was Fazila/Karima. 

 

What? I said. 

 

I was just telling everyone about the tournament, Baba said from behind the 
wheel. Kaka Homayoun and his wives were smiling at me from the middle row of 
seats. 

 

There must have been a hundred kites in the sky that day? Baba said. Is that 
about right, Amir? 

 

I guess so, I mumbled. 

 


A hundred kites, Homayoun jan. No _laaf_. And the only one still flying at the 
end of the day was Amirs. He has the last kite at home, a beautiful blue kite. 
Hassan and Amir ran it together. 

 

Congratulations, Kaka Homayoun said. His first wife, the one with the warts, 
clapped her hands. Wah wah, Amir jan, were all so proud of you! she said. The 
younger wife joined in. Then they were all clapping, yelping their praises, 
telling me how proud Id made them all. Only Rahim Khan, sitting in the 
passenger seat next to Baba, was silent. He was looking at me in an odd way. 

 

Please pull over, Baba, I said. 

 

What? 

 

Getting sick, I muttered, leaning across the seat, pressing against Kaka 
Homayouns daughters. 

 

Fazilal/Karimas face twisted. Pull over, Kaka! His face is yellow! I dont 
want him throwing up on my new dress! she squealed. 

 

Baba began to pull over, but I didnt make it. A few minutes later, I was 
sitting on a rock on the side of the road as they aired out the van. Baba was 
smoking with Kaka Homayoun who was telling Fazila/Karima to stop crying; hed 
buy her another dress in Jalalabad. I closed my eyes, turned my face to the sun. 
Little shapes formed behind my eyelids, like hands playing shadows on the wall. 
They twisted, merged, formed a single image: Hassans brown corduroy pants 
discarded on a pile of old bricks in the alley. 

 

 

KAKA HOMAYOUNS WHITE, two-story house in Jalalabad had a balcony overlooking a 
large, walled garden with apple and persimmon trees. There were hedges that, in 
the summer, the gardener shaped like animals, and a swimming pool with 
emeraldcolored tiles. I sat on the edge of the pool, empty save for a layer of 
slushy snow at the bottom, feet dangling in. Kaka Homayouns kids were playing 
hide-and-seek at the other end of the yard. The women were cooking and I could 
smell onions frying already, could hear the phht-phht of a pressure cooker, 
music, laughter. Baba, Rahim Khan, Kaka Homayoun, and Kaka Nader were sitting on 
the balcony, smoking. Kaka Homayoun was telling them hed brought the projector 
along to show his slides of France. Ten years since hed returned from Paris and 
he was still showing those stupid slides. 

 

It shouldnt have felt this way. Baba and I were finally friends. Wed gone to 
the zoo a few days before, seen Marjan the lion, and I had hurled a pebble at 
the bear when no one was watching. Wed gone to Dadkhodas Kabob House 
afterward, across from Cinema Park, had lamb kabob with freshly baked _naan_ 
from the tandoor. Baba told me stories of his travels to India and Russia, the 
people he had met, like the armless, legless couple in Bombay whod been married 
forty-seven years and raised eleven children. That should have been fun, 
spending a day like that with Baba, hearing his stories. I finally had what Id 
wanted all those years. Except now that I had it, I felt as empty as this 
unkempt pool I was dangling my legs into. 

 

The wives and daughters served dinner--rice, kofta, and chicken _qurma_--at 
sundown. We dined the traditional way, sitting on cushions around the room, 
tablecloth spread on the floor, eating with our hands in groups of four or five 
from common platters. I wasnt hungry but sat down to eat anyway with Baba, Kaka 
Faruq, and Kaka Homayouns two boys. Baba, whod had a few scotches before 


dinner, was still ranting about the kite tournament, how Id outlasted them all, 
how Id come home with the last kite. His booming voice dominated the room. 
People raised their heads from their platters, called out their congratulations. 
Kaka Faruq patted my back with his clean hand. I felt like sticking a knife in 
my eye. 

 

Later, well past midnight, after a few hours of poker between Baba and his 
cousins, the men lay down to sleep on parallel mattresses in the same room where 
wed dined. The women went upstairs. An hour later, I still couldnt sleep. I 
kept tossing and turning as my relatives grunted, sighed, and snored in their 
sleep. I sat up. A wedge of moonlight streamed in through the window. 

 

I watched Hassan get raped, I said to no one. Baba stirred in his sleep. Kaka 
Homayoun grunted. A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I 
wouldnt have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the 
silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to 
get away with it. 

 

I thought about Hassans dream, the one about us swimming in the lake. There is 
no monster, hed said, just water. Except hed been wrong about that. There was 
a monster in the lake. It had grabbed Hassan by the ankles, dragged him to the 
murky bottom. I was that monster. 

 

That was the night I became an insomniac. 

 

 

I DIDNT SPEAK TO HASSAN until the middle of the next week. I had just half-
eaten my lunch and Hassan was doing the dishes. I was walking upstairs, going to 
my room, when Hassan asked if I wanted to hike up the hill. I said I was tired. 
Hassan looked tired too--hed lost weight and gray circles had formed under his 
puffed-up eyes. But when he asked again, I reluctantly agreed. 

 

We trekked up the hill, our boots squishing in the muddy snow. Neither one of us 
said anything. We sat under our pomegranate tree and I knew Id made a mistake. 
I shouldnt have come up the hill. The words Id carved on the tree trunk with 
Alis kitchen knife, Amir and Hassan: The Sultans of Kabul... I couldnt stand 
looking at them now. 

 

He asked me to read to him from the _Shahnamah_ and I told him Id changed my 
mind. Told him I just wanted to go back to my room. He looked away and shrugged. 
We walked back down the way wed gone up in silence. And for the first time in 
my life, I couldnt wait for spring. 

 

 

MY MEMORY OF THE REST of that winter of 1975 is pretty hazy. I remember I was 
fairly happy when Baba was home. Wed eat together, go to see a film, visit Kaka 
Homayoun or Kaka Faruq. Sometimes Rahim Khan came over and Baba let me sit in 
his study and sip tea with them. Hed even have me read him some of my stories. 
It was good and I even believed it would last. And Baba believed it too, I 
think. We both should have known better. For at least a few months after the 
kite tournament, Baba and I immersed ourselves in a sweet illusion, saw each 
other in a way that we never had before. Wed actually deceived ourselves into 
thinking that a toy made of tissue paper, glue, and bamboo could somehow close 
the chasm between us. 

 

But when Baba was out--and he was out a lot--I closed myself in my room. I read 
a book every couple of days, wrote sto ries, learned to draw horses. Id hear 


Hassan shuffling around the kitchen in the morning, hear the clinking of 
silverware, the whistle of the teapot. Id wait to hear the door shut and only 
then I would walk down to eat. On my calendar, I circled the date of the first 
day of school and began a countdown. 

 

To my dismay, Hassan kept trying to rekindle things between us. I remember the 
last time. I was in my room, reading an abbreviated Farsi translation of 
Ivanhoe, when he knocked on my door. 

 

What is it? 

 

Im going to the baker to buy _naan_, he said from the other side. I was 
wondering if you... if you wanted to come along. 

 

I think Im just going to read, I said, rubbing my temples. Lately, every time 
Hassan was around, I was getting a headache. 

 

Its a sunny day, he said. 

 

I can see that. 

 

Might be fun to go for a walk. 

 

You go. 

 

I wish youd come along, he said. Paused. Something thumped against the door, 
maybe his forehead. I dont know what Ive done, Amir agha. I wish youd tell 
me. I dont know why we dont play anymore. 

 

You havent done anything, Hassan. Just go. 

 

You can tell me, Ill stop doing it. 

 

I buried my head in my lap, squeezed my temples with my knees, like a vice. 
Ill tell you what I want you to stop doing, I said, eyes pressed shut. 

 

Anything. 

 

I want you to stop harassing me. I want you to go away, I snapped. I wished he 
would give it right back to me, break the door open and tell me off--it would 
have made things easier, better. But he didnt do anything like that, and when I 
opened the door minutes later, he wasnt there. I fell on my bed, buried my head 
under the pillow, and cried. 

 

 

HASSAN MILLED ABOUT the periphery of my life after that. I made sure our paths 
crossed as little as possible, planned my day that way. Because when he was 
around, the oxygen seeped out of the room. My chest tightened and I couldnt 
draw enough air; Id stand there, gasping in my own little airless bubble of 
atmosphere. But even when he wasnt around, he was. He was there in the hand-
washed and ironed clothes on the cane-seat chair, in the warm slippers left 
outside my door, in the wood already burning in the stove when I came down for 
breakfast. Everywhere I turned, I saw signs of his loyalty, his goddamn 
unwavering loyalty. 

 

Early that spring, a few days before the new school year started, Baba and I 
were planting tulips in the garden. Most of the snow had melted and the hills in 


the north were already dotted with patches of green grass. It was a cool, gray 
morning, and Baba was squatting next to me, digging the soil and planting the 
bulbs I handed to him. He was telling me how most people thought it was better 
to plant tulips in the fall and how that wasnt true, when I came right out and 
said it. Baba, have you ever thought about get ting new servants? 

 

He dropped the tulip bulb and buried the trowel in the dirt. Took off his 
gardening gloves. Id startled him. Chi? What did you say? 

 

I was just wondering, thats all. 

 

Why would I ever want to do that? Baba said curtly. 

 

You wouldnt, I guess. It was just a question, I said, my voice fading to a 
murmur. I was already sorry Id said it. 

 

Is this about you and Hassan? I know theres something going on between you 
two, but whatever it is, you have to deal with it, not me. Im staying out of 
it. 

 

Im sorry, Baba. 

 

He put on his gloves again. I grew up with Ali, he said through clenched 
teeth. My father took him in, he loved Ali like his own son. Forty years Alis 
been with my family. Forty goddamn years. And you think Im just going to throw 
him out? He turned to me now, his face as red as a tulip. Ive never laid a 
hand on you, Amir, but you ever say that again... He looked away, shaking his 
head. You bring me shame. And Hassan... Hassans not going anywhere, do you 
understand? 

 

I looked down and picked up a fistful of cool soil. Let it pour between my 
fingers. 

 

I said, Do you understand? Baba roared. 

 

I flinched. Yes, Baba. 

 

Hassans not going anywhere, Baba snapped. He dug a new hole with the trowel, 
striking the dirt harder than he had to. Hes staying right here with us, where 
he belongs. This is his home and were his family. Dont you ever ask me that 
question again! 

 

I wont, Baba. Im sorry. 

 

We planted the rest of the tulips in silence. 

 

I was relieved when school started that next week. Students with new notebooks 
and sharpened pencils in hand ambled about the courtyard, kicking up dust, 
chatting in groups, waiting for the class captains whistles. Baba drove down 
the dirt lane that led to the entrance. The school was an old two-story building 
with broken windows and dim, cobblestone hallways, patches of its original dull 
yellow paint still showing between sloughing chunks of plaster. Most of the boys 
walked to school, and Babas black Mustang drew more than one envious look. I 
should have been beaming with pride when he dropped me off--the old me would 
have--but all I could muster was a mild form of embarrassment. That and 
emptiness. Baba drove away without saying good-bye. 

 


I bypassed the customary comparing of kite-fighting scars and stood in line. The 
bell rang and we marched to our assigned class, filed in in pairs. I sat in the 
back row. As the Farsi teacher handed out our textbooks, I prayed for a heavy 
load of homework. 

 

School gave me an excuse to stay in my room for long hours. And, for a while, it 
took my mind off what had happened that winter, what I had let happen. For a few 
weeks, I preoccupied myself with gravity and momentum, atoms and cells, the 
Anglo-Afghan wars, instead of thinking about Hassan and what had happened to 
him. But, always, my mind returned to the alley. To Hassans brown corduroy 
pants lying on the bricks. To the droplets of blood staining the snow dark red, 
almost black. 

 

One sluggish, hazy afternoon early that summer, I asked Hassan to go up the hill 
with me. Told him I wanted to read him a new story Id written. He was hanging 
clothes to dry in the yard and I saw his eagerness in the harried way he 
finished the job. 

 

We climbed the hill, making small talk. He asked about school, what I was 
learning, and I talked about my teachers, especially the mean math teacher who 
punished talkative students by sticking a metal rod between their fingers and 
then squeezing them together. Hassan winced at that, said he hoped Id never 
have to experience it. I said Id been lucky so far, knowing that luck had 
nothing to do with it. I had done my share of talking in class too. But my 
father was rich and everyone knew him, so I was spared the metal rod treatment. 

 

We sat against the low cemetery wall under the shade thrown by the pomegranate 
tree. In another month or two, crops of scorched yellow weeds would blanket the 
hillside, but that year the spring showers had lasted longer than usual, nudging 
their way into early summer, and the grass was still green, peppered with 
tangles of wildflowers. Below us, Wazir Akbar Khans white walled, flat-topped 
houses gleamed in the sunshine, the laundry hanging on clotheslines in their 
yards stirred by the breeze to dance like butterflies. 

 

We had picked a dozen pomegranates from the tree. I unfolded the story Id 
brought along, turned to the first page, then put it down. I stood up and picked 
up an overripe pomegranate that had fallen to the ground. 

 

What would you do if I hit you with this? I said, tossing the fruit up and 
down. 

 

Hassans smile wilted. He looked older than Id remembered. No, not older, old. 
Was that possible? Lines had etched into his tanned face and creases framed his 
eyes, his mouth. I might as well have taken a knife and carved those lines 
myself. 

 

What would you do? I repeated. 

 

The color fell from his face. Next to him, the stapled pages of the story Id 
promised to read him fluttered in the breeze. I hurled the pomegranate at him. 
It struck him in the chest, exploded in a spray of red pulp. Hassans cry was 
pregnant with surprise and pain. 

 

Hit me back! I snapped. Hassan looked from the stain on his chest to me. 

 


Get up! Hit me! I said. Hassan did get up, but he just stood there, looking 
dazed like a man dragged into the ocean by a riptide when, just a moment ago, he 
was enjoying a nice stroll on the beach. 

 

I hit him with another pomegranate, in the shoulder this time. The juice 
splattered his face. Hit me back! I spat. Hit me back, goddamn you! I wished 
he would. I wished hed give me the punishment I craved, so maybe Id finally 
sleep at night. Maybe then things could return to how they used to be between 
us. But Hassan did nothing as I pelted him again and again. Youre a coward! I 
said. Nothing but a goddamn coward! 

 

I dont know how many times I hit him. All I know is that, when I finally 
stopped, exhausted and panting, Hassan was smeared in red like hed been shot by 
a firing squad. I fell to my knees, tired, spent, frustrated. 

 

Then Hassan did pick up a pomegranate. He walked toward me. He opened it and 
crushed it against his own forehead. There, he croaked, red dripping down his 
face like blood. Are you satisfied? Do you feel better? He turned around and 
started down the hill. 

 

I let the tears break free, rocked back and forth on my knees. 

 

What am I going to do with you, Hassan? What am I going to do with you? But by 
the time the tears dried up and I trudged down the hill, I knew the answer to 
that question. 

 

 

I TURNED THIRTEEN that summer of 1976, Afghanistans next to last summer of 
peace and anonymity. Things between Baba and me were already cooling off again. 
I think what started it was the stupid comment Id made the day we were planting 
tulips, about getting new servants. I regretted saying it--I really did--but I 
think even if I hadnt, our happy little interlude would have come to an end. 
Maybe not quite so soon, but it would have. By the end of the summer, the 
scraping of spoon and fork against the plate had replaced dinner table chatter 
and Baba had resumed retreating to his study after supper. And closing the door. 
Id gone back to thumbing through Hfez and Khayym, gnawing my nails down to 
the cuticles, writing stories. I kept the stories in a stack under my bed, 
keeping them just in case, though I doubted Baba would ever again ask me to read 
them to him. 

 

Babas motto about throwing parties was this: Invite the whole world or its not 
a party. I remember scanning over the invitation list a week before my birthday 
party and not recognizing at least three-quarters of the four hundred--plus 
Kakas and Khalas who were going to bring me gifts and congratulate me for having 
lived to thirteen. Then I realized they werent really coming for me. It was my 
birthday, but I knew who the real star of the show was. 

 

For days, the house was teeming with Babas hired help. There was Salahuddin the 
butcher, who showed up with a calf and two sheep in tow, refusing payment for 
any of the three. He slaughtered the animals himself in the yard by a poplar 
tree. Blood is good for the tree, I remember him saying as the grass around 
the poplar soaked red. Men I didnt know climbed the oak trees with coils of 
small electric bulbs and meters of extension cords. Others set up dozens of 
tables in the yard, spread a tablecloth on each. The night before the big party 
Babas friend Del-Muhammad, who owned a kabob house in Shar-e-Nau, came to the 
house with his bags of spices. Like the butcher, Del-Muhammad--or Dello, as Baba 
called him--refused payment for his services. He said Baba had done enough for 


his family already. It was Rahim Khan who whispered to me, as Dello marinated 
the meat, that Baba had lent Dello the money to open his restaurant. Baba had 
refused repayment until Dello had shown up one day in our driveway in a Benz and 
insisted he wouldnt leave until Baba took his money. 

 

I guess in most ways, or at least in the ways in which parties are judged, my 
birthday bash was a huge success. Id never seen the house so packed. Guests 
with drinks in hand were chatting in the hallways, smoking on the stairs, 
leaning against doorways. They sat where they found space, on kitchen counters, 
in the foyer, even under the stairwell. In the backyard, they mingled under the 
glow of blue, red, and green lights winking in the trees, their faces 
illuminated by the light of kerosene torches propped everywhere. Baba had had a 
stage built on the balcony that overlooked the garden and planted speakers 
throughout the yard. Ahmad Zahir was playing an accordion and singing on the 
stage over masses of dancing bodies. 

 

I had to greet each of the guests personally--Baba made sure of that; no one was 
going to gossip the next day about how hed raised a son with no manners. I 
kissed hundreds of cheeks, hugged total strangers, thanked them for their gifts. 
My face ached from the strain of my plastered smile. 

 

I was standing with Baba in the yard near the bar when someone said, Happy 
birthday, Amir. It was Assef, with his parents. Assefs father, Mahmood, was a 
short, lanky sort with dark skin and a narrow face. His mother, Tanya, was a 
small, nervous woman who smiled and blinked a lot. Assef was standing between 
the two of them now, grinning, looming over both, his arms resting on their 
shoulders. He led them toward us, like he had brought them here. Like he was the 
parent, and they his children. A wave of dizziness rushed through me. Baba 
thanked them for coming. 

 

I picked out your present myself, Assef said. Tanyas face twitched and her 
eyes flicked from Assef to me. She smiled, unconvincingly, and blinked. I 
wondered if Baba had noticed. 

 

Still playing soccer, Assef jan? Baba said. Hed always wanted me to be 
friends with Assef. 

 

Assef smiled. It was creepy how genuinely sweet he made it look. Of course, 
Kaka jan. 

 

Right wing, as I recall? 

 

Actually, I switched to center forward this year, Assef said. You get to 
score more that way. Were playing the Mekro-Rayan team next week. Should be a 
good match. They have some good players. 

 

Baba nodded. You know, I played center forward too when I was young. 

 

Ill bet you still could if you wanted to,Assef said. He favored Baba with a 
good-natured wink. 

 

Baba returned the wink. I see your father has taught you his world-famous 
flattering ways. He elbowed Assefs father, almost knocked the little fellow 
down. Mahmoods laughter was about as convincing as Tanyas smile, and suddenly 
I wondered if maybe, on some level, their son frightened them. I tried to fake a 
smile, but all I could manage was a feeble upturning of the corners of my mouth-
-my stomach was turning at the sight of my father bonding with Assef. 


 

Assef shifted his eyes to me. Wali and Kamal are here too. They wouldnt miss 
your birthday for anything, he said, laughter lurking just beneath the surface. 
I nodded silently. 

 

Were thinking about playing a little game of volleyball tomorrow at my house, 
Assef said. Maybe youll join us. Bring Hassan if you want to. 

 

That sounds fun, Baba said, beaming. What do you think, Amir? 

 

I dont really like volleyball, I muttered. I saw the light wink out of Babas 
eyes and an uncomfortable silence followed. 

 

Sorry, Assefjan, Baba said, shrugging. That stung, his apologizing for me. 

 

Nay, no harm done, Assef said. But you have an open invitation, Amir jan. 
Anyway, I heard you like to read so I brought you a book. One of my favorites. 
He extended a wrapped birthday gift to me. Happy birthday. 

 

He was dressed in a cotton shirt and blue slacks, a red silk tie and shiny black 
loafers. He smelled of cologne and his blond hair was neatly combed back. On the 
surface, he was the embodiment of every parents dream, a strong, tall, well-
dressed and well-mannered boy with talent and striking looks, not to mention the 
wit to joke with an adult. But to me, his eyes betrayed him. When I looked into 
them, the facade faltered, revealed a glimpse of the madness hiding behind them. 

 

Arent you going to take it, Amir? Baba was saying. Huh? 

 

Your present, he said testily. Assefjan is giving you a present. 

 

Oh, I said. I took the box from Assef and lowered my gaze. I wished I could be 
alone in my room, with my books, away from these people. 

 

Well? Baba said. 

 

What? 

 

Baba spoke in a low voice, the one he took on whenever I embarrassed him in 
public. Arent you going to thank Assef jan? That was very considerate of him. 

 

I wished Baba would stop calling him that. How often did he call me Amir jan? 
Thanks, I said. Assefs mother looked at me like she wanted to say something, 
but she didnt, and I realized that neither of Assefs parents had said a word. 
Before I could embarrass myself and Baba anymore--but mostly to get away from 
Assef and his grin--I stepped away. Thanks for coming, I said. 

 

I squirmed my way through the throng of guests and slipped through the wrought-
iron gates. Two houses down from our house, there was a large, barren dirt lot. 
Id heard Baba tell Rahim Khan that a judge had bought the land and that an 
architect was working on the design. For now, the lot was bare, save for dirt, 
stones, and weeds. 

 

I tore the wrapping paper from Assefs present and tilted the book cover in the 
moonlight. It was a biography of Hitler. I threw it amid a tangle of weeds. 

 


I leaned against the neighbors wall, slid down to the ground. I just sat in the 
dark for a while, knees drawn to my chest, looking up at the stars, waiting for 
the night to be over. 

 

Shouldnt you be entertaining your guests? a familiar voice said. Rahim Khan 
was walking toward me along the wall. 

 

They dont need me for that. Babas there, remember? I said. The ice in Rahim 
Khans drink clinked when he sat next to me. I didnt know you drank. 

 

Turns out I do, he said. Elbowed me playfully. But only on the most important 
occasions. 

 

I smiled. Thanks. 

 

He tipped his drink to me and took a sip. He lit a cigarette, one of the 
unfiltered Pakistani cigarettes he and Baba were always smoking. Did I ever 
tell you I was almost married once? 

 

Really? I said, smiling a little at the notion of Rahim Khan getting married. 
Id always thought of him as Babas quiet alter ego, my writing mentor, my pal, 
the one who never forgot to bring me a souvenir, a saughat, when he returned 
from a trip abroad. But a husband? A father? 

 

He nodded. Its true. I was eighteen. Her name was Homaira. She was a Hazara, 
the daughter of our neighbors servants. She was as beautiful as a pari, light 
brown hair, big hazel eyes... she had this laugh... I can still hear it 
sometimes. He twirled his glass. We used to meet secretly in my fathers apple 
orchards, always after midnight when everyone had gone to sleep. Wed walk under 
the trees and Id hold her hand... Am I embarrassing you, Amir jan? 

 

A little, I said. 

 

It wont kill you, he said, taking another puff. Anyway, we had this fantasy. 
Wed have a great, fancy wedding and invite family and friends from Kabul to 
Kandahar. I would build us a big house, white with a tiled patio and large 
windows. We would plant fruit trees in the garden and grow all sorts of flowers, 
have a lawn for our kids to play on. On Fridays, after _namaz_ at the mosque, 
everyone would get together at our house for lunch and wed eat in the garden, 
under cherry trees, drink fresh water from the well. Then tea with candy as we 
watched our kids play with their cousins... 

 

He took a long gulp of his scotch. Coughed. You should have seen the look on my 
fathers face when I told him. My mother actually fainted. My sisters splashed 
her face with water. They fanned her and looked at me as if I had slit her 
throat. My brother Jalal actually went to fetch his hunting rifle before my 
father stopped him. Rahim Khan barked a bitter laughter. It was Homaira and me 
against the world. And Ill tell you this, Amir jan: In the end, the world 
always wins. Thats just the way of things. 

 

So what happened? 

 

That same day, my father put Homaira and her family on a lorry and sent them 
off to Hazarajat. I never saw her again. 

 

Im sorry, I said. 

 


Probably for the best, though, Rahim Khan said, shrugging. She would have 
suffered. My family would have never accepted her as an equal. You dont order 
someone to polish your shoes one day and call them sister the next. He looked 
at me. You know, you can tell me anything you want, Amir jan. Anytime. 

 

I know, I said uncertainly. He looked at me for a long time, like he was 
waiting, his black bottomless eyes hinting at an unspoken secret between us. For 
a moment, I almost did tell him. Almost told him everything, but then what would 
he think of me? Hed hate me, and rightfully. 

 

Here. He handed me something. I almost forgot. Happy birthday. It was a 
brown leather-bound notebook. I traced my fingers along the gold-colored 
stitching on the borders. I smelled the 

leather. For your stories, he said. I was going to thank him when something 
exploded and bursts of fire lit up the sky. 

 

Fireworks! 

 

We hurried back to the house and found the guests all standing in the yard, 
looking up to the sky. Kids hooted and screamed with each crackle and whoosh. 
People cheered, burst into applause each time flares sizzled and exploded into 
bouquets of fire. Every few seconds, the backyard lit up in sudden flashes of 
red, green, and yellow. 

 

In one of those brief bursts of light, I saw something Ill never forget: Hassan 
serving drinks to Assef and Wali from a silver platter. The light winked out, a 
hiss and a crackle, then another flicker of orange light: Assef grinning, 
kneading Hassan in the chest with a knuckle. 

 

Then, mercifully, darkness. 

 

NINE 

 

Sitting in the middle of my room the next morning, I ripped open box after box 
of presents. I dont know why I even bothered, since I just gave them a joyless 
glance and pitched them to the corner of the room. The pile was growing there: a 
Polaroid camera, a transistor radio, an elaborate electric train set--and 
several sealed envelopes containing cash. I knew Id never spend the money or 
listen to the radio, and the electric train would never trundle down its tracks 
in my room. I didnt want any of it--it was all blood money; Baba would have 
never thrown me a party like that if I hadnt won the tournament. 

 

Baba gave me two presents. One was sure to become the envy of every kid in the 
neighborhood: a brand new Schwinn Stingray, the king of all bicycles. Only a 
handful of kids in all of Kabul owned a new Stingray and now I was one of them. 
It had high-rise handlebars with black rubber grips and its famous banana seat. 
The spokes were gold colored and the steel-frame body red, like a candy apple. 
Or blood. Any other kid would have hopped on the bike immediately and taken it 
for a full block skid. I might have done the same a few months ago. 

 

You like it? Baba said, leaning in the doorway to my room. I gave him a 
sheepish grin and a quick Thank you. I wished I could have mustered more. 

 

We could go for a ride, Baba said. An invitation, but only a halfhearted one. 

 

Maybe later. Im a little tired, I said. 

 


Sure, Baba said. 

 

Baba? 

 

Yes? 

 

Thanks for the fireworks, I said. A thank-you, but only a halfhearted one. 

 

Get some rest, Baba said, walking toward his room. 

 

The other present Baba gave me--and he didnt wait around for me to open this 
one--was a wristwatch. It had a blue face with gold hands in the shape of 
lightning bolts. I didnt even try it on. I tossed it on the pile of toys in the 
corner. The only gift I didnt toss on that mound was Rahim Khans leather-bound 
notebook. That was the only one that didnt feel like blood money. 

 

I sat on the edge of my bed, turned the notebook in my hands, thought about what 
Rahim Khan had said about Homaira, how his fathers dismissing her had been for 
the best in the end. She would have suffered. Like the times Kaka Homayouns 
projector got stuck on the same slide, the same image kept flashing in my mind 
over and over: Hassan, his head downcast, serving drinks to Assef and Wali. 
Maybe it would be for the best. Lessen his suffering. And mine too. Either way, 
this much had become clear: One of us had to go. 

 

Later that afternoon, I took the Schwinn for its first and last spin. I pedaled 
around the block a couple of times and came back. I rolled up the driveway to 
the backyard where Hassan and Ali were cleaning up the mess from last nights 
party. Paper cups, crumpled napkins, and empty bottles of soda littered the 
yard. Ali was folding chairs, setting them along the wall. He saw me and waved. 

 

Salaam, All, I said, waving back. 

 

He held up a finger, asking me to wait, and walked to his living quarters. A 
moment later, he emerged with something in his hands. The opportunity never 
presented itself last night for Hassan and me to give you this, he said, 
handing me a box. Its mod est and not worthy of you, Amir agha. But we hope 
you like it still. Happy birthday. 

 

A lump was rising in my throat. Thank you, Ali, I said. I wished they hadnt 
bought me anything. I opened the box and found a brand new _Shahnamah_, a 
hardback with glossy colored illustrations beneath the passages. Here was 
Ferangis gazing at her newborn son, Kai Khosrau. There was Afrasiyab riding his 
horse, sword drawn, leading his army. And, of course, Rostam inflicting a mortal 
wound onto his son, the warrior Sohrab. Its beautiful, I said. 

 

Hassan said your copy was old and ragged, and that some of the pages were 
missing, Ali said. All the pictures are hand-drawn in this one with pen and 
ink, he added proudly, eyeing a book neither he nor his son could read. 

 

Its lovely, I said. And it was. And, I suspected, not inexpensive either. I 
wanted to tell Ali it was not the book, but I who was unworthy. I hopped back on 
the bicycle. Thank Hassan for me, I said. 

 

I ended up tossing the book on the heap of gifts in the corner of my room. But 
my eyes kept going back to it, so I buried it at the 

bottom. Before I went to bed that night, I asked Baba if hed seen my new watch 
anywhere. 


 

 

THE NEXT MORNING, I waited in my room for Ali to clear the breakfast table in 
the kitchen. Waited for him to do the dishes, wipe the counters. I looked out my 
bedroom window and waited until Ali and Hassan went grocery shopping to the 
bazaar, pushing the empty wheelbarrows in front of them. 

 

Then I took a couple of the envelopes of cash from the pile of gifts and my 
watch, and tiptoed out. I paused before Babas study and listened in. Hed been 
in there all morning, making phone calls. He was talking to someone now, about a 
shipment of rugs due to arrive next week. I went downstairs, crossed the yard, 
and entered Ali and Hassans living quarters by the loquat tree. I lifted 
Hassans mattress and planted my new watch and a handful of Afghani bills under 
it. 

 

I waited another thirty minutes. Then I knocked on Babas door and told what I 
hoped would be the last in a long line of shameful lies. 

 

 

THROUGH MY BEDROOM WINDOW, I watched Ali and Hassan push the wheelbarrows loaded 
with meat, _naan_, fruit, and vegetables up the driveway. I saw Baba emerge from 
the house and walk up to Ali. Their mouths moved over words I couldnt hear. 
Baba pointed to the house and Ali nodded. They separated. Baba came back to the 
house; Ali followed Hassan to their hut. 

 

A few moments later, Baba knocked on my door. Come to my office, he said. 
Were all going to sit down and settle this thing. 

 

I went to Babas study, sat in one of the leather sofas. It was thirty minutes 
or more before Hassan and Ali joined us. 

 

 

THEYD BOTH BEEN CRYING; I could tell from their red, puffed up eyes. They stood 
before Baba, hand in hand, and I wondered how and when Id become capable of 
causing this kind of pain. 

 

Baba came right out and asked. Did you steal that money? Did you steal Amirs 
watch, Hassan? 

 

Hassans reply was a single word, delivered in a thin, raspy voice: Yes. 

 

I flinched, like Id been slapped. My heart sank and I almost blurted out the 
truth. Then I understood: This was Hassans final sacrifice for me. If hed said 
no, Baba would have believed him because we all knew Hassan never lied. And if 
Baba believed him, then Id be the accused; I would have to explain and I would 
be revealed for what I really was. Baba would never, ever forgive me. And that 
led to another understanding: Hassan knew He knew Id seen everything in that 
alley, that Id stood there and done nothing. He knew I had betrayed him and yet 
he was rescuing me once again, maybe for the last time. I loved him in that 
moment, loved him more than Id ever loved anyone, and I wanted to tell them all 
that I was the snake in the grass, the monster in the lake. I wasnt worthy of 
this sacrifice; I was a liar, a cheat, and a thief. And I would have told, 
except that a part of me was glad. Glad that this would all be over with soon. 
Baba would dismiss them, there would be some pain, but life would move on. I 
wanted that, to move on, to forget, to start with a clean slate. I wanted to be 
able to breathe again. 

 


Except Baba stunned me by saying, I forgive you. 

 

Forgive? But theft was the one unforgivable sin, the common denominator of all 
sins. When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wifes right to a 
husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someones 
right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no 
act more wretched than stealing. Hadnt Baba sat me on his lap and said those 
words to me? Then how could he just forgive Hassan? And if Baba could forgive 
that, then why couldnt he forgive me for not being the son hed always wanted? 
Why--We are leaving, Agha sahib, Ali said. 

 

What? Baba said, the color draining from his face. 

 

We cant live here anymore, Ali said. 

 

But I forgive him, Ali, didnt you hear? said Baba. 

 

Life here is impossible for us now, Agha sahib. Were leaving. Ali drew Hassan 
to him, curled his arm around his sons shoulder. It was a protective gesture 
and I knew whom Ali was protecting him from. Ali glanced my way and in his cold, 
unforgiving look, I saw that Hassan had told him. He had told him everything, 
about what Assef and his friends had done to him, about the kite, about me. 
Strangely, I was glad that someone knew me for who I really was; I was tired of 
pretending. 

 

I dont care about the money or the watch, Baba said, his arms open, palms up. 
I dont understand why youre doing this... what do you mean impossible? 

 

Im sorry, Agha sahib, but our bags are already packed. We have made our 
decision. 

 

Baba stood up, a sheen of grief across his face. Ali, havent I provided well 
for you? Havent I been good to you and Hassan? Youre the brother I never had, 
Ali, you know that. Please dont do this. 

 

Dont make this even more difficult than it already is, Agha sahib, Ali said. 
His mouth twitched and, for a moment, I thought I saw a grimace. That was when I 
understood the depth of the pain I had caused, the blackness of the grief I had 
brought onto everyone, that not even Alis paralyzed face could mask his sorrow. 
I forced myself to look at Hassan, but his head was downcast, his shoulders 
slumped, his finger twirling a loose string on the hem of his shirt. 

 

Baba was pleading now. At least tell me why. I need to know! 

 

Ali didnt tell Baba, just as he didnt protest when Hassan confessed to the 
stealing. Ill never really know why, but I could imagine the two of them in 
that dim little hut, weeping, Hassan pleading him not to give me away. But I 
couldnt imagine the restraint it must have taken Ali to keep that promise. 

 

Will you drive us to the bus station? 

 

I forbid you to do this! Baba bellowed. Do you hear me? I forbid you! 

 

Respectfully, you cant forbid me anything, Agha sahib, Ali said. We dont 
work for you anymore. 

 

Where will you go? Baba asked. His voice was breaking. 


 

Hazarajat. 

 

To your cousin? 

 

Yes. Will you take us to the bus station, Agha sahib? 

 

Then I saw Baba do something I had never seen him do before: 

 

He cried. It scared me a little, seeing a grown man sob. Fathers werent 
supposed to cry. Please, Baba was saying, but Ali had already turned to the 
door, Hassan trailing him. Ill never forget the way Baba said that, the pain in 
his plea, the fear. 

 

 

IN KABUL, it rarely rained in the summer. Blue skies stood tall and far, the sun 
like a branding iron searing the back of your neck. Creeks where Hassan and I 
skipped stones all spring turned dry, and rickshaws stirred dust when they 
sputtered by. People went to mosques for their ten rakats of noontime prayer 
and then retreated to whatever shade they could find to nap in, waiting for the 
cool of early evening. Summer meant long school days sweating in tightly packed, 
poorly ventilated classrooms learning to recite ayats from the Koran, struggling 
with those tongue-twisting, exotic Arabic words. It meant catching flies in your 
palm while the mullah droned on and a hot breeze brought with it the smell of 
shit from the outhouse across the schoolyard, churning dust around the lone 
rickety basketball hoop. 

 

But it rained the afternoon Baba took Ali and Hassan to the bus station. 
Thunderheads rolled in, painted the sky iron gray. Within minutes, sheets of 
rain were sweeping in, the steady hiss of falling water swelling in my ears. 

 

Baba had offered to drive them to Bamiyan himself, but Ali refused. Through the 
blurry, rain-soaked window of my bedroom, I watched Ali haul the lone suitcase 
carrying all of their belongings to Babas car idling outside the gates. Hassan 
lugged his mattress, rolled tightly and tied with a rope, on his back. Hed left 
all of his toys behind in the empty shack--I discovered them the next day, piled 
in a corner just like the birthday presents in my room. 

 

Slithering beads of rain sluiced down my window. I saw Baba slam the trunk shut. 
Already drenched, he walked to the drivers side. Leaned in and said something 
to Ali in the backseat, perhaps one last-ditch effort to change his mind. They 
talked that way awhile, Baba getting soaked, stooping, one arm on the roof of 
the car. But when he straightened, I saw in his slumping shoulders that the life 
I had known since Id been born was over. Baba slid in. The headlights came on 
and cut twin funnels of light in the rain. If this were one of the Hindi movies 
Hassan and I used to watch, this was the part where Id run outside, my bare 
feet splashing rainwater. Id chase the car, screaming for it to stop. Id pull 
Hassan out of the backseat and tell him I was sorry, so sorry, my tears mixing 
with rainwater. Wed hug in the downpour. But this was no Hindi movie. I was 
sorry, but I didnt cry and I didnt chase the car. I watched Babas car pull 
away from the curb, taking with it the person whose first spoken word had been 
my name. I caught one final blurry glimpse of Hassan slumped in the back seat 
before Baba turned left at the street corner where wed played marbles so many 
times. 

 

I stepped back and all I saw was rain through windowpanes that looked like 
melting silver. 


 

TEN 

 

_March 1981_ 

 

A young woman sat across from us. She was dressed in an olive green dress with a 
black shawl wrapped tightly around her face against the night chill. She burst 
into prayer every time the truck jerked or stumbled into a pothole, her 
Bismillah! peaking with each of the trucks shudders and jolts. Her husband, a 
burly man in baggy pants and sky blue turban, cradled an infant in one arm and 
thumbed prayer beads with his free hand. His lips moved in silent prayer. There 
were others, in all about a dozen, including Baba and me, sitting with our 
suitcases between our legs, cramped with these strangers in the tarpaulin-
covered cab of an old Russian truck. 

 

My innards had been roiling since wed left Kabul just after two in the morning. 
Baba never said so, but I knew he saw my car sickness as yet another of my array 
of weakness--I saw it on his embarrassed face the couple of times my stomach had 
clenched so badly I had moaned. When the burly guy with the beads--the praying 
womans husband--asked if I was going to get sick, I said I might. Baba looked 
away. The man lifted his corner of the tarpaulin cover and rapped on the 
drivers window, asked him to stop. But the driver, Karim, a scrawny dark-
skinned man with hawk-boned features and a pencil-thin mustache, shook his head. 

 

We are too close to Kabul, he shot back. Tell him to have a strong stomach. 

 

Baba grumbled something under his breath. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, but 
suddenly I was salivating, the back of my throat tasting bile. I turned around, 
lifted the tarpaulin, and threw up over the side of the moving truck. Behind me, 
Baba was apologizing to the other passengers. As if car sickness was a crime. As 
if you werent supposed to get sick when you were eighteen. I threw up two more 
times before Karim agreed to stop, mostly so I wouldnt stink up his vehicle, 
the instrument of his livelihood. Karim was a people smuggler--it was a pretty 
lucrative business then, driving people out of Shorawi-occupied Kabul to the 
relative safety of Pakistan. He was taking us to Jalalabad, about 170 kilometers 
southeast of Kabul, where his brother, Toor, who had a bigger truck with a 
second convoy of refugees, was waiting to drive us across the Khyber Pass and 
into Peshawar. 

 

We were a few kilometers west of Mahipar Falls when Karim pulled to the side of 
the road. Mahipar--which means Flying Fish--was a high summit with a 
precipitous drop overlooking the hydro plant the Germans had built for 
Afghanistan back in 1967. Baba and I had driven over the summit countless times 
on our way to Jalalabad, the city of cypress trees and sugarcane fields where 
Afghans vacationed in the winter. 

 

I hopped down the back of the truck and lurched to the dusty embankment on the 
side of the road. My mouth filled with saliva, a sign of the retching that was 
yet to come. I stumbled to the edge of the cliff overlooking the deep valley 
that was shrouded in dark ness. I stooped, hands on my kneecaps, and waited for 
the bile. Somewhere, a branch snapped, an owl hooted. The wind, soft and cold, 
clicked through tree branches and stirred the bushes that sprinkled the slope. 
And from below, the faint sound of water tumbling through the valley. 

 

Standing on the shoulder of the road, I thought of the way wed left the house 
where Id lived my entire life, as if we were going out for a bite: dishes 
smeared with kofta piled in the kitchen sink; laundry in the wicker basket in 


the foyer; beds unmade; Babas business suits hanging in the closet. Tapestries 
still hung on the walls of the living room and my mothers books still crowded 
the shelves in Babas study. The signs of our elopement were subtle: My parents 
wedding picture was gone, as was the grainy photograph of my grandfather and 
King Nader Shah standing over the dead deer. A few items of clothing were 
missing from the closets. The leather-bound notebook Rahim Khan had given me 
five years earlier was gone. 

 

In the morning, Jalaluddin--our seventh servant in five years--would probably 
think wed gone out for a stroll or a drive. We hadnt told him. You couldnt 
trust anyone in Kabul any more--for a fee or under threat, people told on each 
other, neighbor on neighbor, child on parent, brother on brother, servant on 
master, friend on friend. I thought of the singer Ahmad Zahir, who had played 
the accordion at my thirteenth birthday. He had gone for a drive with some 
friends, and someone had later found his body on the side of the road, a bullet 
in the back of his head. The rafiqs, the comrades, were everywhere and theyd 
split Kabul into two groups: those who eavesdropped and those who didnt. The 
tricky part was that no one knew who belonged to which. A casual remark to the 
tailor while getting fitted for a suit might land you in the dungeons of Poleh-
charkhi. Complain about the curfew to the butcher and next thing you knew, you 
were behind bars staring at the muzzle end of a Kalashnikov. Even at the dinner 
table, in the privacy of their home, people had to speak in a calculated manner-
-the rafiqs were in the classrooms too; theyd taught children to spy on their 
parents, what to listen for, whom to tell. 

 

What was I doing on this road in the middle of the night? I should have been in 
bed, under my blanket, a book with dog-eared pages at my side. This had to be a 
dream. Had to be. Tomorrow morning, Id wake up, peek out the window: No grim-
faced Russian soldiers patrolling the sidewalks, no tanks rolling up and down 
the streets of my city, their turrets swiveling like accusing fingers, no 
rubble, no curfews, no Russian Army Personnel Carriers weaving through the 
bazaars. Then, behind me, I heard Baba and Karim discussing the arrangement in 
Jalalabad over a smoke. Karim was reassuring Baba that his brother had a big 
truck of excellent and first-class quality, and that the trek to Peshawar 
would be very routine. He could take you there with his eyes closed, Karim 
said. I overheard him telling Baba how he and his brother knew the Russian and 
Afghan soldiers who worked the checkpoints, how they had set up a mutually 
profitable arrangement. This was no dream. As if on cue, a MiG suddenly 
screamed past overhead. Karim tossed his cigarette and produced a hand gun from 
his waist. Pointing it to the sky and making shooting gestures, he spat and 
cursed at the MiG. 

 

I wondered where Hassan was. Then the inevitable. I vomited on a tangle of 
weeds, my retching and groaning drowned in the deafening roar of the MiG. WE 
PULLED UP to the checkpoint at Mahipar twenty minutes later. Our driver let the 
truck idle and hopped down to greet the approaching voices. Feet crushed gravel. 
Words were exchanged, brief and hushed. A flick of a lighter. Spasseba. 

 

Another flick of the lighter. Someone laughed, a shrill cackling sound that made 
me jump. Babas hand clamped down on my thigh. The laughing man broke into song, 
a slurring, off-key rendition of an old Afghan wedding song, delivered with a 
thick Russian accent: 

 

Ahesta boro, Mah-e-man, ahesta boro. 

 

Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly. 

 


Boot heels clicked on asphalt. Someone flung open the tarpaulin hanging over the 
back of the truck, and three faces peered in. One was Karim, the other two were 
soldiers, one Afghan, the other a grinning Russian, face like a bulldogs, 
cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth. Behind them, a bone-colored moon 
hung in the sky. Karim and the Afghan soldier had a brief exchange in Pashtu. I 
caught a little of it--something about Toor and his bad luck. The Russian 
soldier thrust his face into the rear of the truck. He was humming the wedding 
song and drumming his finger on the edge of the tailgate. Even in the dim light 
of the moon, I saw the glazed look in his eyes as they skipped from passenger to 
passenger. Despite the cold, sweat streamed from his brow. His eyes settled on 
the young woman wearing the black shawl. He spoke in Russian to Karim without 
taking his eyes off her. Karim gave a curt reply in Russian, which the soldier 
returned with an even curter retort. The Afghan soldier said some thing too, in 
a low, reasoning voice. But the Russian soldier shouted something that made the 
other two flinch. I could feel Baba tightening up next to me. Karim cleared his 
throat, dropped his head. Said the soldier wanted a half hour with the lady in 
the back of the truck. 

 

The young woman pulled the shawl down over her face. Burst into tears. The 
toddler sitting in her husbands lap started crying too. The husbands face had 
become as pale as the moon hovering above. He told Karim to ask Mister Soldier 
Sahib to show a little mercy, maybe he had a sister or a mother, maybe he had a 
wife too. The Russian listened to Karim and barked a series of words. 

 

Its his price for letting us pass, Karim said. He couldnt bring himself to 
look the husband in the eye. 

 

But weve paid a fair price already. Hes getting paid good money, the husband 
said. 

 

Karim and the Russian soldier spoke. He says... he says every price has a tax. 

 

That was when Baba stood up. It was my turn to clamp a hand on his thigh, but 
Baba pried it loose, snatched his leg away. When he stood, he eclipsed the 
moonlight. I want you to ask this man something, Baba said. He said it to 
Karim, but looked directly at the Russian officer. Ask him where his shame is. 

 

They spoke. He says this is war. There is no shame in war. 

 

Tell him hes wrong. War doesnt negate decency. It demands it, even more than 
in times of peace. 

 

Do you have to always be the hero? I thought, my heart fluttering. Cant you 
just let it go for once? But I knew he couldnt--it wasnt in his nature. The 
problem was, his nature was going to get us all killed. 

 

The Russian soldier said something to Karim, a smile creasing his lips. Agha 
sahib, Karim said, these Roussi are not like us. They understand nothing about 
respect, honor. 

 

What did he say? 

 

He says hell enjoy putting a bullet in you almost as much as... Karim trailed 
off, but nodded his head toward the young woman who had caught the guards eye. 
The soldier flicked his unfinished cigarette and unholstered his handgun. So 
this is where Baba dies, I thought. This is how its going to happen. In my 
head, I said a prayer I had learned in school. 


 

Tell him Ill take a thousand of his bullets before I let this indecency take 
place, Baba said. My mind flashed to that winter day six years ago. Me, peering 
around the corner in the alley. Kamal and Wali holding Hassan down. Assefs 
buttock muscles clenching and unclenching, his hips thrusting back and forth. 
Some hero I had been, fretting about the kite. Sometimes, I too wondered if I 
was really Babas son. 

 

The bulldog-faced Russian raised his gun. 

 

Baba, sit down please, I said, tugging at his sleeve. I think he really means 
to shoot you. 

 

Baba slapped my hand away. Havent I taught you anything? he snapped. He 
turned to the grinning soldier. Tell him hed better kill me good with that 
first shot. Because if I dont go down, Im tearing him to pieces, goddamn his 
father! 

 

The Russian soldiers grin never faltered when he heard the translation. He 
clicked the safety on the gun. Pointed the barrel to Babas chest. Heart 
pounding in my throat, I buried my face in my hands. 

 

The gun roared. 

 

Its done, then. Im eighteen and alone. I have no one left in the world. Babas 
dead and now I have to bury him. Where do I bury him? Where do I go after that? 

 

But the whirlwind of half thoughts spinning in my head came to a halt when I 
cracked my eyelids, found Baba still standing. I saw a second Russian officer 
with the others. It was from the muzzle of his upturned gun that smoke swirled. 
The soldier who had meant to shoot Baba had already holstered his weapon. He was 
shuffling his feet. I had never felt more like crying and laughing at the same 
time. 

 

The second Russian officer, gray-haired and heavyset, spoke to us in broken 
Farsi. He apologized for his comrades behavior. Russia sends them here to 
fight, he said. But they are just boys, and when they come here, they find the 
pleasure of drug. He gave the younger officer the rueful look of a father 
exasperated with his misbehaving son. This one is attached to drug now. I try 
to stop him... He waved us off. 

 

Moments later, we were pulling away. I heard a laugh and then the first 
soldiers voice, slurry and off-key, singing the old wedding song. 

 

 

WE RODE IN SILENCE for about fifteen minutes before the young womans husband 
suddenly stood and did something Id seen many others do before him: He kissed 
Babas hand. 

 

 

TOORS BAD LUCK. Hadnt I overheard that in a snippet of conversation back at 
Mahipar? 

 

We rolled into Jalalabad about an hour before sunrise. Karim ushered us quickly 
from the truck into a one-story house at the intersection of two dirt roads 
lined with flat one-story homes, acacia trees, and closed shops. I pulled the 


collar of my coat against the chill as we hurried into the house, dragging our 
belongings. For some reason, I remember smelling radishes. 

 

Once he had us inside the dimly lit, bare living room, Karim locked the front 
door, pulled the tattered sheets that passed for curtains. Then he took a deep 
breath and gave us the bad news: 

 

His brother Toor couldnt take us to Peshawar. It seemed his trucks engine had 
blown the week before and Toor was still waiting for parts. 

 

Last week? someone exclaimed. If you knew this, why did you bring us here? 

 

I caught a flurry of movement out of the corner of my eye. Then a blur of 
something zipping across the room, and the next thing I saw was Karim slammed 
against the wall, his sandaled feet dangling two feet above the floor. Wrapped 
around his neck were Babas hands. 

 

Ill tell you why, Baba snapped. Because he got paid for his leg of the trip. 
Thats all he cared about. Karim was making guttural choking sounds. Spittle 
dripped from the corner of his mouth. 

 

Put him down, Agha, youre killing him, one of the passengers said. 

 

Its what I intend to do, Baba said. What none of the others in the room knew 
was that Baba wasnt joking. Karim was turning red and kicking his legs. Baba 
kept choking him until the young mother, the one the Russian officer had 
fancied, begged him to stop. 

 

Karim collapsed on the floor and rolled around fighting for air when Baba 
finally let go. The room fell silent. Less than two hours ago, Baba had 
volunteered to take a bullet for the honor of a woman he didnt even know. Now 
hed almost choked a man to death, would have done it cheerfully if not for the 
pleas of that same woman. 

 

Something thumped next door. No, not next door, below. 

 

Whats that? someone asked. 

 

The others, Karim panted between labored breaths. In the basement. 

 

How long have they been waiting? Baba said, standing over Karim. 

 

Two weeks. 

 

I thought you said the truck broke down last week. 

 

Karim rubbed his throat. It might have been the week before, he croaked. 

 

How long? 

 

What? 

 

How long for the parts? Baba roared. Karim flinched but said nothing. I was 
glad for the darkness. I didnt want to see the murderous look on Babas face. 

 

 


THE STENCH OF SOMETHING DANK, like mildew, bludgeoned my nostrils the moment 
Karim opened the door that led down the creaky steps to the basement. We 
descended in single file. The steps groaned under Babas weight. Standing in the 
cold basement, I felt watched by eyes blinking in the dark. I saw shapes huddled 
around the room, their silhouettes thrown on the walls by the dim light of a 
pair of kerosene lamps. A low murmur buzzed through the basement, beneath it the 
sound of water drops trickling somewhere, and, something else, a scratching 
sound. 

 

Baba sighed behind me and dropped the bags. 

 

Karim told us it should be a matter of a couple of short days before the truck 
was fixed. Then wed be on our way to Peshawar. On to freedom. On to safety. 

 

The basement was our home for the next week and, by the third night, I 
discovered the source of the scratching sounds. Rats. 

 

 

ONCE MY EYES ADJUSTED to the dark, I counted about thirty refugees in that 
basement. We sat shoulder to shoulder along the walls, ate crackers, bread with 
dates, apples. That first night, all the men prayed together. One of the 
refugees asked Baba why he wasnt joining them. God is going to save us all. 
Why dont you pray to him? 

 

Baba snorted a pinch of his snuff. Stretched his legs. Whatll save us is eight 
cylinders and a good carburetor. That silenced the rest of them for good about 
the matter of God. 

 

It was later that first night when I discovered that two of the people hiding 
with us were Kamal and his father. That was shocking enough, seeing Kamal 
sitting in the basement just a few feet away from me. But when he and his father 
came over to our side of the room and I saw Kamals face, really saw it... 

 

He had withered--there was simply no other word for it. His eyes gave me a 
hollow look and no recognition at all registered in them. His shoulders hunched 
and his cheeks sagged like they were too tired to cling to the bone beneath. His 
father, whod owned a movie theater in Kabul, was telling Baba how, three months 
before, a stray bullet had struck his wife in the temple and killed her. Then he 
told Baba about Kamal. I caught only snippets of it: Should have never let him 
go alone... always so handsome, you know... four of them... tried to fight... 
God... took him... bleeding down there... his pants... doesnt talk any more... 
just stares... 

 

 

THERE WOULD BE NO TRUCK, Karim told us after wed spent a week in the rat-
infested basement. The truck was beyond repair. 

 

There is another option, Karim said, his voice rising amid the groans. His 
cousin owned a fuel truck and had smuggled people with it a couple of times. He 
was here in Jalalabad and could probably fit us all. 

 

Everyone except an elderly couple decided to go. 

 

We left that night, Baba and I, Kamal and his father, the others. Karim and his 
cousin, a square-faced balding man named Aziz, helped us get into the fuel tank. 
One by one, we mounted the idling trucks rear deck, climbed the rear access 
ladder, and slid down into the tank. I remember Baba climbed halfway up the 


ladder, hopped back down and fished the snuffbox from his pocket. He emptied the 
box and picked up a handful of dirt from the middle of the unpaved road. He 
kissed the dirt. Poured it into the box. Stowed the box in his breast pocket, 
next to his heart. 

 

PANIC. 

 

You open your mouth. Open it so wide your jaws creak. You order your lungs to 
draw air, NOW, you need air, need it NOW But your airways ignore you. They 
collapse, tighten, squeeze, and suddenly youre breathing through a drinking 
straw. Your mouth closes and your lips purse and all you can manage is a 
strangled croak. Your hands wriggle and shake. Somewhere a dam has cracked open 
and a flood of cold sweat spills, drenches your body. You want to scream. You 
would if you could. But you have to breathe to scream. 

 

Panic. 

 

The basement had been dark. The fuel tank was pitch-black. I looked right, left, 
up, down, waved my hands before my eyes, didnt see so much as a hint of 
movement. I blinked, blinked again. Nothing at all. The air wasnt right, it was 
too thick, almost solid. Air wasnt supposed to be solid. I wanted to reach out 
with my hands, crush the air into little pieces, stuff them down my windpipe. 
And the stench of gasoline. My eyes stung from the fumes, like someone had 
peeled my lids back and rubbed a lemon on them. My nose caught fire with each 
breath. You could die in a place like this, I thought. A scream was coming. 
Coming, coming... 

 

And then a small miracle. Baba tugged at my sleeve and some thing glowed green 
in the dark. Light! Babas wristwatch. I kept my eyes glued to those fluorescent 
green hands. I was so afraid Id lose them, I didnt dare blink. 

 

Slowly I became aware of my surroundings. I heard groans and muttered prayers. I 
heard a baby cry, its mothers muted soothing. Someone retched. Someone else 
cursed the Shorawi. The truck bounced side to side, up and down. Heads banged 
against metal. 

 

Think of something good, Baba said in my ear. Something happy. 

 

Something good. Something happy. I let my mind wander. I let it come: 

 

Friday afternoon in Paghman. An open field of grass speckled with mulberry trees 
in blossom. Hassan and I stand ankle-deep in untamed grass, I am tugging on the 
line, the spool spinning in Hassans calloused hands, our eyes turned up to the 
kite in the sky. Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to 
say, but because we dont have to say anything--thats how it is between people 
who are each others first memories, people who have fed from the same breast. A 
breeze stirs the grass and Hassan lets the spool roll. The kite spins, dips, 
steadies. Our twin shadows dance on the rippling grass. From somewhere over the 
low brick wall at the other end of the field, we hear chatter and laughter and 
the chirping of a water fountain. And music, some thing old and familiar, I 
think its Ya Mowlah on rubab strings. Someone calls our names over the wall, 
says its time for tea and cake. 

 

I didnt remember what month that was, or what year even. I only knew the memory 
lived in me, a perfectly encapsulated morsel of a good past, a brushstroke of 
color on the gray, barren canvas that our lives had become. 

 


 

THE REST OF THAT RIDE is scattered bits and pieces of memory that come and go, 
most of it sounds and smells: MiGs roaring past overhead; staccatos of gunfire; 
a donkey braying nearby; the jingling of bells and mewling of sheep; gravel 
crushed under the trucks tires; a baby wailing in the dark; the stench of 
gasoline, vomit, and shit. 

 

What I remember next is the blinding light of early morning as I climbed out of 
the fuel tank. I remember turning my face up to the sky, squinting, breathing 
like the world was running out of air. 

 

I lay on the side of the dirt road next to a rocky trench, looked up to the gray 
morning sky, thankful for air, thankful for light, thankful to be alive. 

 

Were in Pakistan, Amir, Baba said. He was standing over me. Karim says he 
will call for a bus to take us to Peshawar. 

 

I rolled onto my chest, still lying on the cool dirt, and saw our suitcases on 
either side of Babas feet. Through the upside down V between his legs, I saw 
the truck idling on the side of the road, the other refugees climbing down the 
rear ladder. Beyond that, the dirt road unrolled through fields that were like 
leaden sheets under the gray sky and disappeared behind a line of bowl-shaped 
hills. Along the way, it passed a small village strung out atop a sun baked 
slope. 

 

My eyes returned to our suitcases. They made me sad for Baba. After everything 
hed built, planned, fought for, fretted over, dreamed of, this was the 
summation of his life: one disappointing son and two suitcases. 

 

Someone was screaming. No, not screaming. Wailing. I saw the passengers huddled 
in a circle, heard their urgent voices. Someone said the word fumes. Someone 
else said it too. The wail turned into a throat-ripping screech. 

 

Baba and I hurried to the pack of onlookers and pushed our way through them. 
Kamals father was sitting cross-legged in the center of the circle, rocking 
back and forth, kissing his sons ashen face. 

 

He wont breathe! My boy wont breathe! he was crying. Kamals lifeless body 
lay on his fathers lap. His right hand, uncurled and limp, bounced to the 
rhythm of his fathers sobs. My boy! He wont breathe! Allah, help him 
breathe! 

 

Baba knelt beside him and curled an arm around his shoulder. But Kamals father 
shoved him away and lunged for Karim who was standing nearby with his cousin. 
What happened next was too fast and too short to be called a scuffle. Karim 
uttered a surprised cry and backpedaled. I saw an arm swing, a leg kick. A 
moment later, Kamals father was standing with Karims gun in his hand. 

 

Dont shoot me! Karim cried. 

 

But before any of us could say or do a thing, Kamals father shoved the barrel 
in his own mouth. Ill never forget the echo of that blast. Or the flash of 
light and the spray of red. 

 

I doubled over again and dry-heaved on the side of the road. 

 

ELEVEN 


 

Fremont, California. 1980s 

 

Baba loved the idea of America. 

 

It was living in America that gave him an ulcer. 

 

I remember the two of us walking through Lake Elizabeth Park in Fremont, a few 
streets down from our apartment, and watching boys at batting practice, little 
girls giggling on the swings in the playground. Baba would enlighten me with his 
politics during those walks with long-winded dissertations. There are only 
three real men in this world, Amir, hed say. Hed count them off on his 
fingers: America the brash savior, Britain, and Israel. The rest of them-- he 
used to wave his hand and make a phht sound --theyre like gossiping old 
women. 

 

The bit about Israel used to draw the ire of Afghans in Fremont who accused him 
of being pro-Jewish and, de facto, anti Islam. Baba would meet them for tea and 
rowt cake at the park, drive them crazy with his politics. What they dont 
understand, hed tell me later, is that religion has nothing to do with it. 
In Babas view, Israel was an island of real men in a sea of Arabs too busy 
getting fat off their oil to care for their own. Israel does this, Israel does 
that, Baba would say in a mock-Arabic accent. Then do something about it! Take 
action. Youre Arabs, help the Palestinians, then! 

 

He loathed Jimmy Carter, whom he called a big-toothed cretin. In 1980, when we 
were still in Kabul, the U.S. announced it would be boycotting the Olympic Games 
in Moscow. Wah wah! Baba exclaimed with disgust. Brezhnev is massacring 
Afghans and all that peanut eater can say is I wont come swim in your pool. 
Baba believed Carter had unwittingly done more for communism than Leonid 
Brezhnev. Hes not fit to run this country. Its like putting a boy who cant 
ride a bike behind the wheel of a brand new Cadillac. What America and the 
world needed was a hard man. A man to be reckoned with, someone who took action 
instead of wringing his hands. That someone came in the form of Ronald Reagan. 
And when Reagan went on TV and called the Shorawi the Evil Empire, Baba went 
out and bought a picture of the grinning president giving a thumbs up. He framed 
the picture and hung it in our hallway, nailing it right next to the old black-
and-white of himself in his thin necktie shaking hands with King Zahir Shah. 
Most of our neighbors in Fremont were bus drivers, policemen, gas station 
attendants, and unwed mothers collecting welfare, exactly the sort of blue-
collar people who would soon suffocate under the pillow Reganomics pressed to 
their faces. Baba was the lone Republican in our building. 

 

But the Bay Areas smog stung his eyes, the traffic noise gave him headaches, 
and the pollen made him cough. The fruit was never sweet enough, the water never 
clean enough, and where were all the trees and open fields? For two years, I 
tried to get Baba to enroll in ESL classes to improve his broken English. But he 
scoffed at the idea. Maybe Ill spell cat and the teacher will give me a 
glittery little star so I can run home and show it off to you, hed grumble. 

 

One Sunday in the spring of 1983, I walked into a small bookstore that sold used 
paperbacks, next to the Indian movie theater just west of where Amtrak crossed 
Fremont Boulevard. I told Baba Id be out in five minutes and he shrugged. He 
had been working at a gas station in Fremont and had the day off. I watched him 
jaywalk across Fremont Boulevard and enter Fast & Easy, a little grocery store 
run by an elderly Vietnamese couple, Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen. They were gray-haired, 
friendly people; she had Parkinsons, hed had his hip replaced. Hes like Six 


Million Dollar Man now, she always said to me, laughing toothlessly. Remember 
Six Million Dollar Man, Amir? Then Mr. Nguyen would scowl like Lee Majors, 
pretend he was running in slow motion. 

 

I was flipping through a worn copy of a Mike Hammer mystery when I heard 
screaming and glass breaking. I dropped the book and hurried across the street. 
I found the Nguyens behind the counter, all the way against the wall, faces 
ashen, Mr. Nguyens arms wrapped around his wife. On the floor: oranges, an 
overturned magazine rack, a broken jar of beef jerky, and shards of glass at 
Babas feet. 

 

It turned out that Baba had had no cash on him for the oranges. Hed written Mr. 
Nguyen a check and Mr. Nguyen had asked for an ID. He wants to see my license, 
Baba bellowed in Farsi. Almost two years weve bought his damn fruits and put 
money in his pocket and the son of a dog wants to see my license! 

 

Baba, its not personal, I said, smiling at the Nguyens. Theyre supposed to 
ask for an ID. 

 

I dont want you here, Mr. Nguyen said, stepping in front of his wife. He was 
pointing at Baba with his cane. He turned to me. 

 

Youre nice young man but your father, hes crazy. Not welcome anymore. 

 

Does he think Im a thief? Baba said, his voice rising. People had gathered 
outside. They were staring. What kind of a country is this? No one trusts 
anybody! 

 

I call police, Mrs. Nguyen said, poking out her face. You get out or I call 
police. 

 

Please, Mrs. Nguyen, dont call the police. Ill take him home. Just dont call 
the police, okay? Please? 

 

Yes, you take him home. Good idea, Mr. Nguyen said. His eyes, behind his wire-
rimmed bifocals, never left Baba. I led Baba through the doors. He kicked a 
magazine on his way out. After Id made him promise he wouldnt go back in, I 
returned to the store and apologized to the Nguyens. Told them my father was 
going through a difficult time. I gave Mrs. Nguyen our telephone number and 
address, and told her to get an estimate for the damages. Please call me as 
soon as you know. Ill pay for everything, Mrs. Nguyen. Im so sorry. Mrs. 
Nguyen took the sheet of paper from me and nodded. I saw her hands were shaking 
more than usual, and that made me angry at Baba, his causing an old woman to 
shake like that. 

 

My father is still adjusting to life in America, I said, by way of 
explanation. 

 

I wanted to tell them that, in Kabul, we snapped a tree branch and used it as a 
credit card. Hassan and I would take the wooden stick to the bread maker. Hed 
carve notches on our stick with his knife, one notch for each loaf of _naan_ 
hed pull for us from the tandoors roaring flames. At the end of the month, my 
father paid him for the number of notches on the stick. That was it. No 
questions. No ID. 

 

But I didnt tell them. I thanked Mr. Nguyen for not calling the cops. Took Baba 
home. He sulked and smoked on the balcony while I made rice with chicken neck 


stew. A year and a half since wed stepped off the Boeing from Peshawar, and 
Baba was still adjusting. 

 

We ate in silence that night. After two bites, Baba pushed away his plate. 

 

I glanced at him across the table, his nails chipped and black with engine oil, 
his knuckles scraped, the smells of the gas station--dust, sweat, and gasoline--
on his clothes. Baba was like the widower who remarries but cant let go of his 
dead wife. He missed the sugarcane fields of Jalalabad and the gardens of 
Paghman. He missed people milling in and out of his house, missed walking down 
the bustling aisles of Shor Bazaar and greeting people who knew him and his 
father, knew his grandfather, people who shared ancestors with him, whose pasts 
intertwined with his. 

 

For me, America was a place to bury my memories. 

 

For Baba, a place to mourn his. 

 

Maybe we should go back to Peshawar, I said, watching the ice float in my 
glass of water. Wed spent six months in Peshawar waiting for the INS to issue 
our visas. Our grimy one-bedroom apartment smelled like dirty socks and cat 
droppings, but we were surrounded by people we knew--at least people Baba knew. 
Hed invite the entire corridor of neighbors for dinner, most of them Afghans 
waiting for visas. Inevitably, someone would bring a set of tabla and someone 
else a harmonium. Tea would brew, and who ever had a passing singing voice would 
sing until the sun rose, the mosquitoes stopped buzzing, and clapping hands grew 
sore. 

 

You were happier there, Baba. It was more like home, I said. 

 

Peshawar was good for me. Not good for you. 

 

You work so hard here. 

 

Its not so bad now, he said, meaning since he had become the day manager at 
the gas station. But Id seen the way he winced and rubbed his wrists on damp 
days. The way sweat erupted on his forehead as he reached for his bottle of 
antacids after meals. Besides, I didnt bring us here for me, did I? 

 

I reached across the table and put my hand on his. My student hand, clean and 
soft, on his laborers hand, grubby and calloused. I thought of all the trucks, 
train sets, and bikes hed bought me in Kabul. Now America. One last gift for 
Amir. 

 

Just one month after we arrived in the U.S., Baba found a job off Washington 
Boulevard as an assistant at a gas station owned by an Afghan acquaintance--hed 
started looking for work the same week we arrived. Six days a week, Baba pulled 
twelve-hour shifts pumping gas, running the register, changing oil, and washing 
windshields. Id bring him lunch sometimes and find him looking for a pack of 
cigarettes on the shelves, a customer waiting on the other side of the oil-
stained counter, Babas face drawn and pale under the bright fluorescent lights. 
The electronic bell over the door would ding-dong when I walked in, and Baba 
would look over his shoulder, wave, and smile, his eyes watering from fatigue. 

 

The same day he was hired, Baba and I went to our eligibility officer in San 
Jose, Mrs. Dobbins. She was an overweight black woman with twinkling eyes and a 
dimpled smile. Shed told me once that she sang in church, and I believed her--


she had a voice that made me think of warm milk and honey. Baba dropped the 
stack of food stamps on her desk. Thank you but I dont want, Baba said. I 
work always. In Afghanistan I work, in America I work. Thank you very much, Mrs. 
Dobbins, but I dont like it free money. 

 

Mrs. Dobbins blinked. Picked up the food stamps, looked from me to Baba like we 
were pulling a prank, or slipping her a trick as Hassan used to say. Fifteen 
years I been doin this job and nobodys ever done this, she said. And that was 
how Baba ended those humiliating food stamp moments at the cash register and 
alleviated one of his greatest fears: that an Afghan would see him buying food 
with charity money. Baba walked out of the welfare office like a man cured of a 
tumor. 

 

 

THAT SUMMER OF 1983, I graduated from high school at the age of twenty, by far 
the oldest senior tossing his mortarboard on the football field that day. I 
remember losing Baba in the swarm of families, flashing cameras, and blue gowns. 
I found him near the twenty-yard line, hands shoved in his pockets, camera 
dangling on his chest. He disappeared and reappeared behind the people moving 
between us: squealing blue-clad girls hugging, crying, boys high-fiving their 
fathers, each other. Babas beard was graying, his hair thinning at the temples, 
and hadnt he been taller in Kabul? He was wearing his brown suit--his only 
suit, the same one he wore to Afghan weddings and funerals--and the red tie I 
had bought for his fiftieth birthday that year. Then he saw me and waved. 
Smiled. He motioned for me to wear my mortarboard, and took a picture of me with 
the schools clock tower in the background. I smiled for him--in a way, this was 
his day more than mine. He walked to me, curled his arm around my neck, and gave 
my brow a single kiss. I am moftakhir, Amir, he said. Proud. His eyes gleamed 
when he said that and I liked being on the receiving end of that look. 

 

He took me to an Afghan kabob house in Hayward that night and ordered far too 
much food. He told the owner that his son was going to college in the fall. I 
had debated him briefly about that just before graduation, and told him I wanted 
to get a job. Help out, save some money, maybe go to college the following year. 
But he had shot me one of his smoldering Baba looks, and the words had vaporized 
on my tongue. 

 

After dinner, Baba took me to a bar across the street from the restaurant. The 
place was dim, and the acrid smell of beer Id always disliked permeated the 
walls. Men in baseball caps and tank tops played pool, clouds of cigarette smoke 
hovering over the green tables, swirling in the fluorescent light. We drew 
looks, Baba in his brown suit and me in pleated slacks and sports jacket. We 
took a seat at the bar, next to an old man, his leathery face sickly in the blue 
glow of the Michelob sign overhead. Baba lit a cigarette and ordered us beers. 
Tonight I am too much happy, he announced to no one and everyone. Tonight I 
drinking with my son. And one, please, for my friend, he said, patting the old 
man on the back. The old fellow tipped his hat and smiled. He had no upper 
teeth. 

 

Baba finished his beer in three gulps and ordered another. He had three before I 
forced myself to drink a quarter of mine. By then he had bought the old man a 
scotch and treated a foursome of pool players to a pitcher of Budweiser. Men 
shook his hand and clapped him on the back. They drank to him. Someone lit his 
cigarette. Baba loosened his tie and gave the old man a handful of quarters. He 
pointed to the jukebox. Tell him to play his favorite songs, he said to me. 
The old man nodded and gave Baba a salute. Soon, country music was blaring, and, 
just like that, Baba had started a party. 


 

At one point, Baba stood, raised his beer, spilling it on the sawdust floor, and 
yelled, Fuck the Russia! The bars laughter, then its full-throated echo 
followed. Baba bought another round of pitchers for everyone. 

 

When we left, everyone was sad to see him go. Kabul, Peshawar, Hayward. Same old 
Baba, I thought, smiling. 

I drove us home in Babas old, ochre yellow Buick Century. Baba dozed off on the 
way, snoring like a jackhammer. I smelled tobacco on him and alcohol, sweet and 
pungent. But he sat up when I stopped the car and said in a hoarse voice, Keep 
driving to the end of the block. 

 

Why, Baba? 

 

Just go. He had me park at the south end of the street. He reached in his coat 
pocket and handed me a set of keys. There, he said, pointing to the car in 
front of us. It was an old model Ford, long and wide, a dark color I couldnt 
discern in the moon light. It needs painting, and Ill have one of the guys at 
the station put in new shocks, but it runs. 

 

I took the keys, stunned. I looked from him to the car. 

 

Youll need it to go to college, he said. 

 

I took his hand in mine. Squeezed it. My eyes were tearing over and I was glad 
for the shadows that hid our faces. Thank you, Baba. 

 

We got out and sat inside the Ford. It was a Grand Torino. Navy blue, Baba said. 
I drove it around the block, testing the brakes, the radio, the turn signals. I 
parked it in the lot of our apartment building and shut off the engine. 
Tashakor, Baba jan, I said. I wanted to say more, tell him how touched I was 
by his act of kindness, how much I appreciated all that he had done for me, all 
that he was still doing. But I knew Id embarrass him. Tashakor, I repeated 
instead. 

 

He smiled and leaned back against the headrest, his forehead almost touching the 
ceiling. We didnt say anything. Just sat in the dark, listened to the tink-tink 
of the engine cooling, the wail of a siren in the distance. Then Baba rolled his 
head toward me. I wish Hassan had been with us today, he said. 

 

A pair of steel hands closed around my windpipe at the sound of Hassans name. I 
rolled down the window. Waited for the steel hands to loosen their grip. 

 

 

I WOULD ENROLL in junior college classes in the fall, I told Baba the day after 
graduation. He was drinking cold black tea and chewing cardamom seeds, his 
personal trusted antidote for hang over headaches. 

 

I think Ill major in English, I said. I winced inside, waiting for his reply. 

 

English? 

 

Creative writing. 

 

He considered this. Sipped his tea. Stories, you mean. Youll make up stories. 
I looked down at my feet. 

 


They pay for that, making up stories? 

 

If youre good, I said. And if you get discovered. 

 

How likely is that, getting discovered? 

 

It happens, I said. 

 

He nodded. And what will you do while you wait to get good and get discovered? 
How will you earn money? If you marry, how will you support your khanum? 

 

I couldnt lift my eyes to meet his. Ill... find a job. 

 

Oh, he said. Wah wah! So, if I understand, youll study several years to earn 
a degree, then youll get a chatti job like mine, one you could just as easily 
land today, on the small chance that your degree might someday help you get... 
discovered. He took a deep breath and sipped his tea. Grunted something about 
medical school, law school, and real work. 

 

My cheeks burned and guilt coursed through me, the guilt of indulging myself at 
the expense of his ulcer, his black fingernails and aching wrists. But I would 
stand my ground, I decided. I didnt want to sacrifice for Baba anymore. The 
last time I had done that, I had damned myself. 

 

Baba sighed and, this time, tossed a whole handful of car damom seeds in his 
mouth. 

 

 

SOMETIMES, I GOT BEHIND the wheel of my Ford, rolled down the windows, and drove 
for hours, from the East Bay to the South Bay, up the Peninsula and back. I 
drove through the grids of cottonwood-lined streets in our Fremont neighborhood, 
where people whod never shaken hands with kings lived in shabby, flat one-story 
houses with barred windows, where old cars like mine dripped oil on blacktop 
driveways. Pencil gray chain-link fences closed off the backyards in our 
neighborhood. Toys, bald tires, and beer bottles with peeling labels littered 
unkempt front lawns. I drove past tree-shaded parks that smelled like bark, past 
strip malls big enough to hold five simultaneous Buzkashi tournaments. I drove 
the Torino up the hills of Los Altos, idling past estates with picture windows 
and silver lions guarding the wrought-iron gates, homes with cherub fountains 
lining the manicured walkways and no Ford Torinos in the drive ways. Homes that 
made Babas house in Wazir Akbar Khan look like a servants hut. 

 

Id get up early some Saturday mornings and drive south on Highway 17, push the 
Ford up the winding road through the mountains to Santa Cruz. I would park by 
the old lighthouse and wait for sunrise, sit in my car and watch the fog rolling 
in from the sea. In Afghanistan, I had only seen the ocean at the cinema. 
Sitting in the dark next to Hassan, I had always wondered if it was true what 
Id read, that sea air smelled like salt. I used to tell Hassan that someday 
wed walk on a strip of seaweed-strewn beach, sink our feet in the sand, and 
watch the water recede from our toes. The first time I saw the Pacific, I almost 
cried. It was as vast and blue as the oceans on the movie screens of my 
childhood. 

 

Sometimes in the early evening, I parked the car and walked up a freeway 
overpass. My face pressed against the fence, Id try to count the blinking red 
taillights inching along, stretching as far as my eyestould see. BMWs. Saabs. 


Porsches. Cars Id never seen in Kabul, where most people drove Russian Volgas, 
old Opels, or Iranian Paikans. 

 

Almost two years had passed since we had arrived in the U.S., and I was still 
marveling at the size of this country, its vastness. Beyond every freeway lay 
another freeway, beyond every city another city hills beyond mountains and 
mountains beyond hills, and, beyond those, more cities and more people. 

 

Long before the Roussi army marched into Afghanistan, long before villages were 
burned and schools destroyed, long before mines were planted like seeds of death 
and children buried in rock-piled graves, Kabul had become a city of ghosts for 
me. A city of harelipped ghosts. 

 

America was different. America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the 
past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the 
waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no 
sins. 

 

If for nothing else, for that, I embraced America. 

 

 

THE FOLLOWING SUMMER, the summer of 1984--the summer I turned twenty-one--Baba 
sold his Buick and bought a dilapidated 71 Volkswagen bus for $550 from an old 
Afghan acquaintance whod been a high-school science teacher in Kabul. The 
neighbors heads turned the afternoon the bus sputtered up the street and farted 
its way across our lot. Baba killed the engine and let the bus roll silently 
into our designated spot. We sank in our seats, laughed until tears rolled down 
our cheeks, and, more important, until we were sure the neighbors werent 
watching anymore. The bus was a sad carcass of rusted metal, shattered windows 
replaced with black garbage bags, balding tires, and upholstery shredded down to 
the springs. But the old teacher had reassured Baba that the engine and 
transmission were sound and, on that account, the man hadnt lied. 

 

On Saturdays, Baba woke me up at dawn. As he dressed, I scanned the classifieds 
in the local papers and circled the garage sale ads. We mapped our route--
Fremont, Union City, Newark, and Hayward first, then San Jose, Milpitas, 
Sunnyvale, and Campbell if time permitted. Baba drove the bus, sipping hot tea 
from the thermos, and I navigated. We stopped at garage sales and bought 
knickknacks that people no longer wanted. We haggled over old sewing machines, 
one-eyed Barbie dolls, wooden tennis rackets, guitars with missing strings, and 
old Electrolux vacuum cleaners. By midafternoon, wed filled the back of the VW 
bus with used goods. Then early Sunday mornings, we drove to the San Jose flea 
market off Berryessa, rented a spot, and sold the junk for a small profit: a 
Chicago record that wed bought for a quarter the day before might go for $1, or 
$4 for a set of five; a ramshackle Singer sewing machine purchased for $10 
might, after some bargaining, bring in $25. 

 

By that summer, Afghan families were working an entire section of the San Jose 
flea market. Afghan music played in the aisles of the Used Goods section. There 
was an unspoken code of behavior among Afghans at the flea market: You greeted 
the guy across the aisle, you invited him for a bite of potato bolani or a 
little qabuli, and you chatted. You offered tassali, condolences, for the death 
of a parent, congratulated the birth of children, and shook your head mournfully 
when the conversation turned to Afghanistan and the Roussis--which it inevitably 
did. But you avoided the topic of Saturday. Because it might turn out that the 
fellow across the isle was the guy youd nearly blindsided at the freeway exit 
yesterday in order to beat him to a promising garage sale. 


 

The only thing that flowed more than tea in those aisles was Afghan gossip. The 
flea market was where you sipped green tea with almond kolchas, and learned 
whose daughter had broken off an engagement and run off with her American 
boyfriend, who used to be Parchami--a communist--in Kabul, and who had bought a 
house with under-the-table money while still on welfare. Tea, Politics, and 
Scandal, the ingredients of an Afghan Sunday at the flea market. 

 

I ran the stand sometimes as Baba sauntered down the aisle, hands respectfully 
pressed to his chest, greeting people he knew from Kabul: mechanics and tailors 
selling hand-me-down wool coats and scraped bicycle helmets, alongside former 
ambassadors, out-of-work surgeons, and university professors. 

 

One early Sunday morning in July 1984, while Baba set up, I bought two cups of 
coffee from the concession stand and returned to find Baba talking to an older, 
distinguished-looking man. I put the cups on the rear bumper of the bus, next to 
the REAGAN/BUSH FOR 84 sticker. 

 

Amir, Baba said, motioning me over, this is General Sahib, Mr. Iqbal Taheri. 
He was a decorated general in Kabul. He worked for the Ministry of Defense. 

 

Taheri. Why did the name sound familiar? The general laughed like a man used to 
attending formal parties where hed laughed on cue at the minor jokes of 
important people. He had wispy silver-gray hair combed back from his smooth, 
tanned forehead, and tufts of white in his bushy eye brows. He smelled like 
cologne and wore an iron-gray three-piece suit, shiny from too many pressings; 
the gold chain of a pocket watch dangled from his vest. 

 

Such a lofty introduction, he said, his voice deep and cultured. _Salaam, 
bachem_. Hello, my child. 

 

_Salaam_, General Sahib, I said, shaking his hand. His thin hands belied a 
firm grip, as if steel hid beneath the moisturized skin. 

 

Amir is going to be a great writer, Baba said. I did a double take at this. 
He has finished his first year of college and earned As in all of his 
courses. 

 

Junior college, I corrected him. 

 

_Mashallah_, General Taheri said. Will you be writing about our country, 
history perhaps? Economics? 

 

I write fiction, I said, thinking of the dozen or so short stories I had 
written in the leather-bound notebook Rahim Khan had given me, wondering why I 
was suddenly embarrassed by them in this mans presence. 

 

Ah, a storyteller, the general said. Well, people need stories to divert them 
at difficult times like this. He put his hand on Babas shoulder and turned to 
me. Speaking of stories, your father and I hunted pheasant together one summer 
day in Jalalabad, he said. It was a marvelous time. If I recall correctly, 
your fathers eye proved as keen in the hunt as it had in business. 

 

Baba kicked a wooden tennis racket on our tarpaulin spread with the toe of his 
boot. Some business. 

 


General Taheri managed a simultaneously sad and polite smile, heaved a sigh, and 
gently patted Babas shoulder. Zendagi migzara, he said. Life goes on. He 
turned his eyes to me. We Afghans are prone to a considerable degree of 
exaggeration, bachem, and I have heard many men foolishly labeled great. But 
your father has the distinction of belonging to the minority who truly deserves 
the label. This little speech sounded to me the way his suit looked: often used 
and unnaturally shiny. 

 

Youre flattering me, Baba said. 

 

I am not, the general said, tilting his head sideways and pressing his hand to 
his chest to convey humility. Boys and girls must know the legacy of their 
fathers. He turned to me. Do you appreciate your father, bachem? Do you really 
appreciate him? 

 

Balay, General Sahib, I do, I said, wishing hed not call me my child. 

 

Then congratulations, you are already halfway to being a man, he said with no 
trace of humor, no irony, the compliment of the casually arrogant. 

 

Padar jan, you forgot your tea. A young womans voice. She was standing behind 
us, a slim-hipped beauty with velvety coal black hair, an open thermos and 
Styrofoam cup in her hand. I blinked, my heart quickening. She had thick black 
eyebrows that touched in the middle like the arched wings of a flying bird, and 
the gracefully hooked nose of a princess from old Persia--maybe that of 
Tahmineh, Rostams wife and Sohrabs mother from the _Shahnamah_. Her eyes, 
walnut brown and shaded by fanned lashes, met mine. Held for a moment. Flew 
away. 

 

You are so kind, my dear, General Taheri said. He took the cup from her. 
Before she turned to go, I saw she had a brown, sickle-shaped birthmark on the 
smooth skin just above her left jawline. She walked to a dull gray van two 
aisles away and put the thermos inside. Her hair spilled to one side when she 
kneeled amid boxes of old records and paperbacks. 

 

My daughter, Soraya jan, General Taheri said. He took a deep breath like a man 
eager to change the subject and checked his gold pocket watch. Well, time to go 
and set up. He and Baba kissed on the cheek and he shook my hand with both of 
his. Best of luck with the writing, he said, looking me in the eye. His pale 
blue eyes revealed nothing of the thoughts behind them. 

 

For the rest of that day, I fought the urge to look toward the gray van. 

 

 

IT CAME TO ME on our way home. Taheri, I knew Id heard that name before. 

 

Wasnt there some story floating around about Taheris daughter? I said to 
Baba, trying to sound casual. 

 

You know me, Baba said, inching the bus along the queue exiting the flea 
market. Talk turns to gossip and I walk away. 

 

But there was, wasnt there? I said. 

 

Why do you ask? He was looking at me coyly. 

 

I shrugged and fought back a smile. Just curious, Baba. 


 

Really? Is that all? he said, his eyes playful, lingering on mine. Has she 
made an impression on you? 

 

I rolled my eyes. Please, Baba. 

 

He smiled, and swung the bus out of the flea market. We headed for Highway 680. 
We drove in silence for a while. All Ive heard is that there was a man once 
and things... didnt go well. He said this gravely, like hed disclosed to me 
that she had breast cancer. 

 

I hear she is a decent girl, hardworking and kind. But no khastegars, no 
suitors, have knocked on the generals door since. Baba sighed. It may be 
unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change 
the course of a whole lifetime, Amir, he said. 

 

 

LYING AWAKE IN BED that night, I thought of Soraya Taheris sickle-shaped 
birthmark, her gently hooked nose, and the way her luminous eyes had fleetingly 
held mine. My heart stuttered at the thought of her. Soraya Taheri. My Swap Meet 
Princess. 

 

TWELVE 

 

In Afghanistan, _yelda_ is the first night of the month of _Jadi_, the first 
night of winter, and the longest night of the year. As was the tradition, Hassan 
and I used to stay up late, our feet tucked under the kursi, while Ali tossed 
apple skin into the stove and told us ancient tales of sultans and thieves to 
pass that longest of nights. It was from Ali that I learned the lore of _yelda_, 
that bedeviled moths flung themselves at candle flames, and wolves climbed 
mountains looking for the sun. Ali swore that if you ate water melon the night 
of _yelda_, you wouldnt get thirsty the coming summer. 

 

When I was older, I read in my poetry books that _yelda_ was the starless night 
tormented lovers kept vigil, enduring the endless dark, waiting for the sun to 
rise and bring with it their loved one. After I met Soraya Taheri, every night 
of the week became a _yelda_ for me. And when Sunday mornings came, I rose from 
bed, Soraya Taheris brown-eyed face already in my head. In Babas bus, I 
counted the miles until Id see her sitting barefoot, arranging cardboard boxes 
of yellowed encyclopedias, her heels white against the asphalt, silver bracelets 
jingling around her slender wrists. Id think of the shadow her hair cast on the 
ground when it slid off her back and hung down like a velvet curtain. Soraya. 
Swap Meet Princess. The morning sun to my yelda. 

 

I invented excuses to stroll down the aisle--which Baba acknowledged with a 
playful smirk--and pass the Taheris stand. I would wave at the general, 
perpetually dressed in his shiny overpressed gray suit, and he would wave back. 
Sometimes hed get up from his directors chair and wed make small talk about 
my writing, the war, the days bargains. And Id have to will my eyes not to 
peel away, not to wander to where Soraya sat reading a paperback. The general 
and I would say our good-byes and Id try not to slouch as I walked away. 

 

Sometimes she sat alone, the general off to some other row to socialize, and I 
would walk by, pretending not to know her, but dying to. Sometimes she was there 
with a portly middle-aged woman with pale skin and dyed red hair. I promised 
myself that I would talk to her before the summer was over, but schools 
reopened, the leaves reddened, yellowed, and fell, the rains of winter swept in 


and wakened Babas joints, baby leaves sprouted once more, and I still hadnt 
had the heart, the dil, to even look her in the eye. 

 

The spring quarter ended in late May 1985. I aced all of my general education 
classes, which was a minor miracle given how Id sit in lectures and think of 
the soft hook of Sorayas nose. 

 

Then, one sweltering Sunday that summer, Baba and I were at the flea market, 
sitting at our booth, fanning our faces with news papers. Despite the sun 
bearing down like a branding iron, the market was crowded that day and sales had 
been strong--it was only 12:30 but wed already made $160. I got up, stretched, 
and asked Baba if he wanted a Coke. He said hed love one. 

 

Be careful, Amir, he said as I began to walk. Of what, Baba? 

 

I am not an ahmaq, so dont play stupid with me. 

 

I dont know what youre talking about. 

 

Remember this, Baba said, pointing at me, The man is a Pashtun to the root. 
He has nang and namoos. Nang. Namoos. Honor and pride. The tenets of Pashtun 
men. Especially when it came to the chastity of a wife. Or a daughter. 

 

Im only going to get us drinks. 

 

Just dont embarrass me, thats all I ask. 

 

I wont. God, Baba. 

 

Baba lit a cigarette and started fanning himself again. 

 

I walked toward the concession booth initially, then turned left at the T-shirt 
stand--where, for $5, you could have the face of Jesus, Elvis, Jim Morrison, or 
all three, pressed on a white nylon T-shirt. Mariachi music played overhead, and 
I smelled pickles and grilled meat. 

 

I spotted the Taheris gray van two rows from ours, next to a kiosk selling 
mango-on-a-stick. She was alone, reading. White ankle-length summer dress today. 
Open-toed sandals. Hair pulled back and crowned with a tulip-shaped bun. I meant 
to simply walk by again and I thought I had, except suddenly I was standing at 
the edge of the Taheris white tablecloth, staring at Soraya across curling 
irons and old neckties. She looked up. 

 

Salaam, I said. Im sorry to be mozahem, I didnt mean to disturb you. 

 

Salaam. 

 

Is General Sahib here today? I said. My ears were burning. I couldnt bring 
myself to look her in the eye. 

 

He went that way, she said. Pointed to her right. The bracelet slipped down to 
her elbow, silver against olive. 

 

Will you tell him I stopped by to pay my respects? I said. 

 

I will. 

 


Thank you, I said. Oh, and my name is Amir. In case you need to know. So you 
can tell him. That I stopped by. To... pay my respects. 

 

Yes. 

 

I shifted on my feet, cleared my throat. Ill go now. Sorry to have disturbed 
you. 

 

Nay, you didnt, she said. 

 

Oh. Good. I tipped my head and gave her a half smile. Ill go now. Hadnt I 
already said that? Khoda hfez. 

 

Khoda hfez. 

 

I began to walk. Stopped and turned. I said it before I had a chance to lose my 
nerve: Can I ask what youre reading? 

 

She blinked. 

 

I held my breath. Suddenly, I felt the collective eyes of the flea market 
Afghans shift to us. I imagined a hush falling. Lips stop ping in midsentence. 
Heads turning. Eyes narrowing with keen interest. 

 

What was this? 

 

Up to that point, our encounter could have been interpreted as a respectful 
inquiry, one man asking for the whereabouts of another man. But Id asked her a 
question and if she answered, wed be... well, wed be chatting. Me a mojarad, a 
single young man, and she an unwed young woman. One with a history, no less. 
This was teetering dangerously on the verge of gossip material, and the best 
kind of it. Poison tongues would flap. And she would bear the brunt of that 
poison, not me--I was fully aware of the Afghan double standard that favored my 
gender. Not Did you see him chatting with her? but Wooooy! Did you see how she 
wouldnt let him go? What a lochak! 

 

By Afghan standards, my question had been bold. With it, I had bared myself, and 
left little doubt as to my interest in her. But I was a man, and all I had 
risked was a bruised ego. Bruises healed. Reputations did not. Would she take my 
dare? 

 

She turned the book so the cover faced me. Wuthering Heights. Have you read 
it? she said. 

 

I nodded. I could feel the pulsating beat of my heart behind my eyes. Its a 
sad story. 

 

Sad stories make good books, she said. 

 

They do. 

 

I heard you write. 

 

How did she know? I wondered if her father had told her, maybe she had asked 
him. I immediately dismissed both scenarios as absurd. Fathers and sons could 
talk freely about women. But no Afghan girl--no decent and mohtaram Afghan girl, 
at least--queried her father about a young man. And no father, especially a 


Pashtun with nang and namoos, would discuss a mojarad with his daughter, not 
unless the fellow in question was a khastegar, a suitor, who had done the 
honorable thing and sent his father to knock on the door. 

 

Incredibly, I heard myself say, Would you like to read one of my stories? 

 

I would like that, she said. I sensed an unease in her now, saw it in the way 
her eyes began to flick side to side. Maybe checking for the general. I wondered 
what he would say if he found me speaking for such an inappropriate length of 
time with his daughter. 

 

Maybe Ill bring you one someday, I said. I was about to say more when the 
woman Id seen on occasion with Soraya came walking up the aisle. She was 
carrying a plastic bag full of fruit. When she saw us, her eyes bounced from 
Soraya to me and back. She smiled. 

Amir jan, good to see you, she said, unloading the bag on the tablecloth. Her 
brow glistened with a sheen of sweat. Her red hair, coiffed like a helmet, 
glittered in the sunlight--I could see bits of her scalp where the hair had 
thinned. She had small green eyes buried in a cabbage-round face, capped teeth, 
and little fingers like sausages. A golden Allah rested on her chest, the chain 
burrowed under the skin tags and folds of her neck. I am Jamila, Soraya jans 
mother. 

 

Salaam, Khala jan, I said, embarrassed, as I often was around Afghans, that 
she knew me and I had no idea who she was. 

 

How is your father? she said. 

 

Hes well, thank you. 

 

You know, your grandfather, Ghazi Sahib, the judge? Now, his uncle and my 
grandfather were cousins, she said. So you see, were related. She smiled a 
cap-toothed smile, and I noticed the right side of her mouth drooping a little. 
Her eyes moved between Soraya and me again. 

 

Id asked Baba once why General Taheris daughter hadnt married yet. No 
suitors, Baba said. No suitable suitors, he amended. But he wouldnt say more--
Baba knew how lethal idle talk could prove to a young womans prospects of 
marrying well. Afghan men, especially those from reputable families, were fickle 
creatures. A whisper here, an insinuation there, and they fled like startled 
birds. So weddings had come and gone and no one had sung ahesta boro for Soraya, 
no one had painted her palms with henna, no one had held a Koran over her 
headdress, and it had been General Taheri whod danced with her at every 
wedding. 

 

And now, this woman, this mother, with her heartbreakingly eager, crooked smile 
and the barely veiled hope in her eyes. I cringed a little at the position of 
power Id been granted, and all because I had won at the genetic lottery that 
had determined my sex. 

 

I could never read the thoughts in the generals eyes, but I knew this much 
about his wife: If I was going to have an adversary in this--whatever this was--
it would not be her. 

 

Sit down, Amir jan, she said. Soraya, get him a chair, hachem. And wash one 
of those peaches. Theyre sweet and fresh. 

 


Nay, thank you, I said. I should get going. My fathers waiting. 

 

Oh? Khanum Taheri said, clearly impressed that Id done the polite thing and 
declined the offer. Then here, at least have this. She threw a handful of 
kiwis and a few peaches into a paper bag and insisted I take them. Carry my 
Salaam to your father. And come back to see us again. 

 

I will. Thank you, Khala jan, I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw 
Soraya looking away. 

 

 

I THOUGHT YOU WERE GETTING COKES, Baba said, taking the bag of peaches from 
me. He was looking at me in a simultaneously serious and playful way. I began to 
make some thing up, but he bit into a peach and waved his hand, Dont bother, 
Amir. Just remember what I said. 

 

 

THAT NIGHT IN BED, I thought of the way dappled sunlight had danced in Sorayas 
eyes, and of the delicate hollows above her collarbone. I replayed our 
conversation over and over in my head. Had she said I heard you write or I heard 
youre a writer? Which was it? I tossed in my sheets and stared at the ceiling, 
dismayed at the thought of six laborious, interminable nights of yelda until I 
saw her again. 

 

 

IT WENT ON LIKE THAT for a few weeks. Id wait until the general went for a 
stroll, then Id walk past the Taheris stand. If Khanum Taheri was there, shed 
offer me tea and a kolcha and wed chat about Kabul in the old days, the people 
we knew, her arthritis. Undoubtedly, she had noticed that my appearances always 
coincided with her husbands absences, but she never let on. Oh you just missed 
your Kaka, shed say. I actually liked it when Khanum Taheri was there, and not 
just because of her amiable ways; Soraya was more relaxed, more talkative with 
her mother around. As if her presence legitimized whatever was happening between 
us--though certainly not to the same degree that the generals would have. 
Khanum Taheris chaperoning made our meetings, if not gossip-proof, then less 
gossip-worthy, even if her borderline fawning on me clearly embarrassed Soraya. 

 

One day, Soraya and I were alone at their booth, talking. She was telling me 
about school, how she too was working on her general education classes, at 
Ohlone Junior College in Fremont. 

 

What will you major in? 

 

I want to be a teacher, she said. 

 

Really? Why? 

 

Ive always wanted to. When we lived in Virginia, I became ESL certified and 
now I teach at the public library one night a week. My mother was a teacher too, 
she taught Farsi and history at Zarghoona High School for girls in Kabul. 

 

A potbellied man in a deerstalker hat offered three dollars for a five-dollar 
set of candlesticks and Soraya let him have it. She dropped the money in a 
little candy box by her feet. She looked at me shyly. I want to tell you a 
story, she said, but Im a little embarrassed about it. 

 

Tell me. 


 

Its kind of silly. 

 

Please tell me. 

 

She laughed. Well, when I was in fourth grade in Kabul, my father hired a woman 
named Ziba to help around the house. She had a sister in Iran, in Mashad, and, 
since Ziba was illiterate, shed ask me to write her sister letters once in a 
while. And when the sister replied, Id read her letter to Ziba. One day, I 
asked her if shed like to learn to read and write. She gave me this big smile, 
crinkling her eyes, and said shed like that very much. So wed sit at the 
kitchen table after I was done with my own schoolwork and Id teach her Alef-
beh. I remember looking up sometimes in the middle of homework and seeing Ziba 
in the kitchen, stirring meat in the pressure cooker, then sitting down with a 
pencil to do the alphabet homework Id assigned to her the night before. 

 

Anyway, within a year, Ziba could read childrens books. We sat in the yard and 
she read me the tales of Dara and Sara--slowly but correctly. She started 
calling me Moalem Soraya, Teacher Soraya. She laughed again. I know it sounds 
childish, but the first time Ziba wrote her own letter, I knew there was nothing 
else Id ever want to be but a teacher. I was so proud of her and I felt Id 
done something really worthwhile, you know? 

 

Yes, I lied. I thought of how I had used my literacy to ridicule Hassan. How I 
had teased him about big words he didnt know. 

 

My father wants me to go to law school, my mothers always throwing hints about 
medical school, but Im going to be a teacher. Doesnt pay much here, but its 
what I want. 

 

My mother was a teacher too, I said. 

 

I know, she said. My mother told me. Then her face red dened with a blush at 
what she had blurted, at the implication of her answer, that Amir 
Conversations took place between them when I wasnt there. It took an enormous 
effort to stop myself from smiling. 

 

I brought you something. I fished the roll of stapled pages from my back 
pocket. As promised. I handed her one of my short stories. 

 

Oh, you remembered, she said, actually beaming. Thank you! I barely had time 
to register that shed addressed me with tu for the first time and not the 
formal shoma, because suddenly her smile vanished. The color dropped from her 
face, and her eyes fixed on something behind me. I turned around. Came face-to-
face with General Taheri. 

 

Amir jan. Our aspiring storyteller. What a pleasure, he said. He was smiling 
thinly. 

 

Salaam, General Sahib, I said through heavy lips. 

 

He moved past me, toward the booth. What a beautiful day it is, nay? he said, 
thumb hooked in the breast pocket of his vest, the other hand extended toward 
Soraya. She gave him the pages. 

 


They say it will rain this week. Hard to believe, isnt it? He dropped the 
rolled pages in the garbage can. Turned to me and gently put a hand on my 
shoulder. We took a few steps together. 

 

You know, bachem, I have grown rather fond of you. You are a decent boy, I 
really believe that, but-- he sighed and waved a hand --even decent boys need 
reminding sometimes. So its my duty to remind you that you are among peers in 
this flea market. He stopped. His expressionless eyes bore into mine. You see, 
everyone here is a storyteller. He smiled, revealing perfectly even teeth. Do 
pass my respects to your father, Amir jan. 

 

He dropped his hand. Smiled again. 

 

WHATS WRONG? Baba said. He was taking an elderly womans money for a rocking 
horse. 

 

Nothing, I said. I sat down on an old TV set. Then I told him anyway. 

 

Akh, Amir, he sighed. 

 

As it turned out, I didnt get to brood too much over what had happened. 

 

Because later that week, Baba caught a cold. 

 

 

IT STARTED WITH A HACKING COUGH and the sniffles. He got over the sniffles, but 
the cough persisted. Hed hack into his handkerchief, stow it in his pocket. I 
kept after him to get it checked, but hed wave me away. He hated doctors and 
hospitals. To my knowledge, the only time Baba had ever gone to a doctor was the 
time hed caught malaria in India. 

 

Then, two weeks later, I caught him coughing a wad of blood-stained phlegm into 
the toilet. 

 

How long have you been doing that? I said. 

 

Whats for dinner? he said. 

 

Im taking you to the doctor. 

 

Even though Baba was a manager at the gas station, the owner hadnt offered him 
health insurance, and Baba, in his recklessness, hadnt insisted. So I took him 
to the county hospital in San Jose. The sallow, puffy-eyed doctor who saw us 
introduced himself as a second-year resident. He looks younger than you and 
sicker than me, Baba grumbled. The resident sent us down for a chest X-ray. 
When the nurse called us back in, the resident was filling out a form. 

 

Take this to the front desk, he said, scribbling quickly. 

 

What is it? I asked. 

 

A referral. Scribble scribble. 

 

For what? 

 

Pulmonary clinic. 

 


Whats that? 

 

He gave me a quick glance. Pushed up his glasses. Began scribbling again. Hes 
got a spot on his right lung. I want them to check it out. 

 

A spot? I said, the room suddenly too small. 

 

Cancer? Baba added casually. 

 

Possible. Its suspicious, anyway, the doctor muttered. 

 

Cant you tell us more? I asked. 

 

Not really. Need a CAT scan first, then see the lung doctor. He handed me the 
referral form. You said your father smokes, right? 

 

Yes. 

 

He nodded. Looked from me to Baba and back again. Theyll call you within two 
weeks. 

 

I wanted to ask him how I was supposed to live with that word, suspicious, for 
two whole weeks. How was I supposed eat, work, study? How could he send me home 
with that word? 

 

I took the form and turned it in. That night, I waited until Baba fell asleep, 
and then folded a blanket. I used it as a prayer rug. Bowing my head to the 
ground, I recited half-forgotten verses from the Koran--verses the mullah had 
made us commit to memory in Kabul--and asked for kindness from a God I wasnt 
sure existed. I envied the mullah now, envied his faith and certainty. 

 

Two weeks passed and no one called. And when I called them, they told me theyd 
lost the referral. Was I sure I had turned it in? They said they would call in 
another three weeks. I raised hell and bargained the three weeks down to one for 
the CAT scan, two to see the doctor. 

 

The visit with the pulmonologist, Dr. Schneider, was going well until Baba asked 
him where he was from. Dr. Schneider said Russia. Baba lost it. 

 

Excuse us, Doctor, I said, pulling Baba aside. Dr. Schneider smiled and stood 
back, stethoscope still in hand. 

 

Baba, I read Dr. Schneiders biography in the waiting room. He was born in 
Michigan. Michigan! Hes American, a lot more American than you and I will ever 
be. 

 

I dont care where he was born, hes Roussi, Baba said, grimacing like it was 
a dirty word. His parents were Roussi, his grandparents were Roussi. I swear on 
your mothers face Ill break his arm if he tries to touch me. 

 

Dr. Schneiders parents fled from Shorawi, dont you see? They escaped! 

 

But Baba would hear none of it. Sometimes I think the only thing he loved as 
much as his late wife was Afghanistan, his late country. I almost screamed with 
frustration. Instead, I sighed and turned to Dr. Schneider. Im sorry, Doctor. 
This isnt going to work out. 

 


The next pulmonologist, Dr. Amani, was Iranian and Baba approved. Dr. Amani, a 
soft-spoken man with a crooked mustache and a mane of gray hair, told us he had 
reviewed the CAT scan results and that he would have to perform a procedure 
called a bronchoscopy to get a piece of the lung mass for pathology. He 
scheduled it for the following week. I thanked him as I helped Baba out of the 
office, thinking that now I had to live a whole week with this new word, mass, 
an even more ominous word than suspicious. I wished Soraya were there with me. 

 

It turned out that, like Satan, cancer had many names. Babas was called Oat 
Cell Carcinoma. Advanced. Inoperable. Baba asked Dr. Amani for a prognosis. Dr. 
Amani bit his lip, used the word grave. There is chemotherapy, of course, he 
said. But it would only be palliative. 

 

What does that mean? Baba asked. 

 

Dr. Amani sighed. It means it wouldnt change the outcome, just prolong it. 

 

Thats a clear answer, Dr. Amani. Thank you for that, Baba said. But no 
chemo-medication for me. He had the same resolved look on his face as the day 
hed dropped the stack of food stamps on Mrs. Dobbinss desk. 

 

But Baba-- 

 

Dont you challenge me in public, Amir. Ever. Who do you think you are? 

 

 

THE RAIN General Taheri had spoken about at the flea market was a few weeks 
late, but when we stepped out of Dr. Amanis office, passing cars sprayed grimy 
water onto the sidewalks. Baba lit a cigarette. He smoked all the way to the car 
and all the way home. 

 

As he was slipping the key into the lobby door, I said, I wish youd give the 
chemo a chance, Baba. 

 

Baba pocketed the keys, pulled me out of the rain and under the buildings 
striped awning. He kneaded me on the chest with the hand holding the cigarette. 
Bas! Ive made my decision. 

 

What about me, Baba? What am I supposed to do? I said, my eyes welling up. 

 

A look of disgust swept across his rain-soaked face. It was the same look hed 
give me when, as a kid, Id fall, scrape my knees, and cry. It was the crying 
that brought it on then, the crying that brought it on now. Youre twenty-two 
years old, Amir! A grown man! You... he opened his mouth, closed it, opened it 
again, reconsidered. Above us, rain drummed on the canvas awning. Whats going 
to happen to you, you say? All those years, thats what I was trying to teach 
you, how to never have to ask that question. 

 

He opened the door. Turned back to me. And one more thing. No one finds out 
about this, you hear me? No one. I dont want anybodys sympathy. Then he 
disappeared into the dim lobby. He chain-smoked the rest of that day in front of 
the TV. I didnt know what or whom he was defying. Me? Dr. Amani? Or maybe the 
God he had never believed in. 

 

 

FOR A WHILE, even cancer couldnt keep Baba from the flea market. We made our 
garage sale treks on Saturdays, Baba the driver and me the navigator, and set up 


our display on Sundays. Brass lamps. Baseball gloves. Ski jackets with broken 
zippers. Baba greeted acquaintances from the old country and I haggled with 
buyers over a dollar or two. Like any of it mattered. Like the day I would 
become an orphan wasnt inching closer with each closing of shop. 

 

Sometimes, General Taheri and his wife strolled by. The general, ever the 
diplomat, greeted me with a smile and his two-handed shake. But there was a new 
reticence to Khanum Taheris demeanor. A reticence broken only by her secret, 
droopy smiles and the furtive, apologetic looks she cast my way when the 
generals attention was engaged elsewhere. 

 

I remember that period as a time of many firsts: The first time I heard Baba 
moan in the bathroom. The first time I found blood on his pillow. In over three 
years running the gas station, Baba had never called in sick. Another first. 

 

By Halloween of that year, Baba was getting so tired by mid-Saturday afternoon 
that hed wait behind the wheel while I got out and bargained for junk. By 
Thanksgiving, he wore out before noon. When sleighs appeared on front lawns and 
fake snow on Douglas firs, Baba stayed home and I drove the VW bus alone up and 
down the peninsula. 

 

Sometimes at the flea market, Afghan acquaintances made remarks about Babas 
weight loss. At first, they were complimentary. They even asked the secret to 
his diet. But the queries and compliments stopped when the weight loss didnt. 
When the pounds kept shedding. And shedding. When his cheeks hollowed. And his 
temples melted. And his eyes receded in their sockets. 

 

Then, one cool Sunday shortly after New Years Day, Baba was selling a lampshade 
to a stocky Filipino man while I rummaged in the VW for a blanket to cover his 
legs with. 

 

Hey, man, this guy needs help! the Filipino man said with alarm. I turned 
around and found Baba on the ground. His arms and legs were jerking. 

 

Komak! I cried. Somebody help! I ran to Baba. He was frothing at the mouth, 
the foamy spittle soaking his beard. His upturned eyes showed nothing but white. 

 

People were rushing to us. I heard someone say seizure. Some one else yelling, 
Call 911! I heard running footsteps. The sky darkened as a crowd gathered 
around us. 

 

Babas spittle turned red. He was biting his tongue. I kneeled beside him and 
grabbed his arms and said Im here Baba, Im here, youll be all right, Im 
right here. As if I could soothe the convulsions out of him. Talk them into 
leaving my Baba alone. I felt a wetness on my knees. Saw Babas bladder had let 
go. Shhh, Baba jan, Im here. Your son is right here. 

 

 

THE DOCTOR, white-bearded and perfectly bald, pulled me out of the room. I want 
to go over your fathers CAT scans with you, he said. He put the films up on a 
viewing box in the hallway and pointed with the eraser end of his pencil to the 
pictures of Babas cancer, like a cop showing mug shots of the killer to the 
victims family. Babas brain on those pictures looked like cross sections of a 
big walnut, riddled with tennis ball-shaped gray things. 

 


As you can see, the cancers metastasized, he said. Hell have to take 
steroids to reduce the swelling in his brain and antiseizure medications. And 
Id recommend palliative radiation. Do you know what that means? 

 

I said I did. Id become conversant in cancer talk. 

 

All right, then, he said. He checked his beeper. I have to go, but you can 
have me paged if you have any questions. 

 

Thank you. 

 

I spent the night sitting on a chair next to Babas bed. 

 

 

THE NEXT MORNING, the waiting room down the hall was jammed with Afghans. The 
butcher from Newark. An engineer whod worked with Baba on his orphanage. They 
filed in and paid Baba their respects in hushed tones. Wished him a swift 
recovery. Baba was awake then, groggy and tired, but awake. 

 

Midmorning, General Taheri and his wife came. Soraya followed. We glanced at 
each other, looked away at the same time. How are you, my friend? General 
Taheri said, taking Babas hand. 

 

Baba motioned to the IV hanging from his arm. Smiled thinly. The general smiled 
back. 

 

You shouldnt have burdened yourselves. All of you, Baba croaked. 

 

Its no burden, Khanum Taheri said. 

 

No burden at all. More importantly, do you need anything? General Taheri said. 
Anything at all? Ask me like youd ask a brother. 

 

I remembered something Baba had said about Pashtuns once. We may be hardheaded 
and I know were far too proud, but, in the hour of need, believe me that 
theres no one youd rather have at your side than a Pashtun. 

 

Baba shook his head on the pillow. Your coming here has brightened my eyes. 
The general smiled and squeezed Babas hand. How are you, Amir jan? Do you need 
anything? 

 

The way he was looking at me, the kindness in his eyes... Nay thank you, 
General Sahib. Im... A lump shot up in my throat and my eyes teared over. I 
bolted out of the room. 

 

I wept in the hallway, by the viewing box where, the night before, Id seen the 
killers face. 

 

Babas door opened and Soraya walked out of his room. She stood near me. She was 
wearing a gray sweatshirt and jeans. Her hair was down. I wanted to find comfort 
in her arms. 

 

Im so sorry, Amir, she said. We all knew something was wrong, but we had no 
idea it was this. 

 

I blotted my eyes with my sleeve. He didnt want anyone to know. 

 


Do you need anything? 

 

No. I tried to smile. She put her hand on mine. Our first touch. I took it. 
Brought it to my face. My eyes. I let it go. Youd better go back inside. Or 
your father will come after me. 

 

She smiled and nodded. I should. She turned to go. Soraya? 

 

Yes? 

 

Im happy you came, It means... the world to me. 

 

 

THEY DISCHARGED BABA two days later. They brought in a specialist called a 
radiation oncologist to talk Baba into getting radiation treatment. Baba 
refused. They tried to talk me into talking him into it. But Id seen the look 
on Babas face. I thanked them, signed their forms, and took Baba home in my 
Ford Torino. 

 

That night, Baba was lying on the couch, a wool blanket covering him. I brought 
him hot tea and roasted almonds. Wrapped my arms around his back and pulled him 
up much too easily. His shoulder blade felt like a birds wing under my fingers. 
I pulled the blanket back up to his chest where ribs stretched his thin, sallow 
skin. 

 

Can I do anything else for you, Baba? 

 

Nay, bachem. Thank you. 

 

I sat beside him. Then I wonder if youll do something for me. If youre not 
too exhausted. 

 

What? 

 

I want you to go khastegari. I want you to ask General Taheri for his 
daughters hand. 

 

Babas dry lips stretched into a smile. A spot of green on a wilted leaf. Are 
you sure? 

 

More sure than Ive ever been about anything. 

 

Youve thought it over? 

 

Balay, Baba. 

 

Then give me the phone. And my little notebook. 

 

I blinked. Now? 

 

Then when? 

 

I smiled. Okay. I gave him the phone and the little black notebook where Baba 
had scribbled his Afghan friends numbers. 

 

He looked up the Taheris. Dialed. Brought the receiver to his ear. My heart was 
doing pirouettes in my chest. 


 

Jamila jan? Salaam alaykum, he said. He introduced himself. Paused. Much 
better, thank you. It was so gracious of you to come. He listened for a while. 
Nodded. Ill remember that, thank you. Is General Sahib home? Pause. Thank 
you. 

 

His eyes flicked to me. I wanted to laugh for some reason. Or scream. I brought 
the ball of my hand to my mouth and bit on it. Baba laughed softly through his 
nose. 

 

General Sahib, Salaam alaykum... Yes, much much better... Balay... Youre so 
kind. General Sahib, Im calling to ask if I may pay you and Khanum Taheri a 
visit tomorrow morning. Its an honorable matter... Yes... Eleven oclock is 
just fine. Until then. Khoda hfez. 

 

He hung up. We looked at each other. I burst into giggles. Baba joined in. 

 

 

BABA WET HIS HAIR and combed it back. I helped him into a clean white shirt and 
knotted his tie for him, noting the two inches of empty space between the collar 
button and Babas neck. I thought of all the empty spaces Baba would leave 
behind when he was gone, and I made myself think of something else. He wasnt 
gone. Not yet. And this was a day for good thoughts. The jacket of his brown 
suit, the one hed worn to my graduation, hung over him--too much of Baba had 
melted away to fill it anymore. I had to roll up the sleeves. I stooped and tied 
his shoelaces for him. 

 

The Taheris lived in a flat, one-story house in one of the residential areas in 
Fremont known for housing a large number of Afghans. It had bay windows, a 
pitched roof, and an enclosed front porch on which I saw potted geraniums. The 
generals gray van was parked in the driveway. 

 

I helped Baba out of the Ford and slipped back behind the wheel. He leaned in 
the passenger window. Be home, Ill call you in an hour. 

 

Okay, Baba, I said. Good luck. 

 

He smiled. 

 

I drove away. In the rearview mirror, Baba was hobbling up the Taheris driveway 
for one last fatherly duty. 

 

 

I PACED THE LIVING ROOM of our apartment waiting for Babas call. Fifteen paces 
long. Ten and a half paces wide. What if the general said no? What if he hated 
me? I kept going to the kitchen, checking the oven clock. 

 

The phone rang just before noon. It was Baba. 

 

Well? 

 

The general accepted. 

 

I let out a burst of air. Sat down. My hands were shaking. He did? 

 

Yes, but Soraya jan is upstairs in her room. She wants to talk to you first. 

 


Okay. 

 

Baba said something to someone and there was a double click as he hung up. 

 

Amir? Sorayas voice. Salaam. 

 

My father said yes. 

 

I know, I said. I switched hands. I was smiling. Im so happy I dont know 
what to say. 

 

Im happy too, Amir. I... cant believe this is happening. 

 

I laughed. I know. 

 

Listen, she said, I want to tell you something. Something you have to know 
before... 

 

I dont care what it is. 

 

You need to know. I dont want us to start with secrets. And Id rather you 
hear it from me. 

 

If it will make you feel better, tell me. But it wont change anything. 

 

There was a long pause at the other end. When we lived in Virginia, I ran away 
with an Afghan man. I was eighteen at the time... rebellious... stupid, and... 
he was into drugs... We lived together for almost a month. All the Afghans in 
Virginia were talking about it. 

 

Padar eventually found us. He showed up at the door and... made me come home. I 
was hysterical. Yelling. Screaming. Saying I hated him... 

 

Anyway, I came home and-- She was crying. Excuse me. I heard her put the 
phone down. Blow her nose. Sorry, she came back on, sounding hoarse. When I 
came home, I saw my mother had had a stroke, the right side of her face was 
paralyzed and... I felt so guilty. She didnt deserve that. 

 

Padar moved us to California shortly after. A silence followed. 

 

How are you and your father now? I said. 

 

Weve always had our differences, we still do, but Im grateful he came for me 
that day. I really believe he saved me. She paused. So, does what I told you 
bother you? 

 

A little, I said. I owed her the truth on this one. I couldnt lie to her and 
say that my pride, my iftikhar, wasnt stung at all that she had been with a 
man, whereas I had never taken a woman to bed. It did bother me a bit, but I had 
pondered this quite a lot in the weeks before I asked Baba to go khastegari. And 
in the end the question that always came back to me was this: How could I, of 
all people, chastise someone for their past? 

 

Does it bother you enough to change your mind? 

 

No, Soraya. Not even close, I said. Nothing you said changes anything. I want 
us to marry. 


 

She broke into fresh tears. 

 

I envied her. Her secret was out. Spoken. Dealt with. I opened my mouth and 
almost told her how Id betrayed Hassan, lied, driven him out, and destroyed a 
forty-year relationship between Baba and Ali. But I didnt. I suspected there 
were many ways in which Soraya Taheri was a better person than me. Courage was 
just one of them. 

 

THIRTEEN 

 

When we arrived at the Taheris home the next evening--for lafz, the ceremony of 
giving word--I had to park the Ford across the street. Their driveway was 
already jammed with cars. I wore a navy blue suit I had bought the previous day, 
after I had brought Baba home from _khastegari_. I checked my tie in the 
rearview mirror. 

 

You look khoshteep, Baba said. Handsome. 

 

Thank you, Baba. Are you all right? Do you feel up to this? 

 

Up to this? Its the happiest day of my life, Amir, he said, smiling tiredly. 

 

 

I COULD HEAR CHATTER from the other side of the door, laughter, and Afghan music 
playing softly--it sounded like a classical ghazal by Ustad Sarahang. I rang the 
bell. A face peeked through the curtains of the foyer window and disappeared. 
Theyre here! I heard a womans voice say. The chatter stopped. Someone turned 
off the music. 

 

Khanum Taheri opened the door. _Salaam alaykum_, she said, beaming. Shed 
permed her hair, I saw, and wore an elegant, ankle-length black dress. When I 
stepped into the foyer, her eyes moistened. Youre barely in the house and Im 
crying already, Amir jan, she said. I planted a kiss on her hand, just as Baba 
had instructed me to do the night before. 

 

She led us through a brightly lit hallway to the living room. On the wood-
paneled walls, I saw pictures of the people who would become my new family: A 
young bouffant-haired Khanum Taheri and the general--Niagara Falls in the 
background; Khanum Taheri in a seamless dress, the general in a narrow-lapelled 
jacket and thin tie, his hair full and black; Soraya, about to board a wooden 
roller coaster, waving and smiling, the sun glinting off the silver wires in her 
teeth. A photo of the general, dashing in full military outfit, shaking hands 
with King Hussein of Jordan. A portrait of Zahir Shah. 

 

The living room was packed with about two dozen guests seated on chairs placed 
along the walls. When Baba entered, everybody stood up. We went around the room, 
Baba leading slowly, me behind him, shaking hands and greeting the guests. The 
general--still in his gray suit--and Baba embraced, gently tapping each other on 
the back. They said their Salaams in respectful hushed tones. 

 

The general held me at arms length and smiled knowingly, as if saying, Now, 
this is the right way--the Afghan way--to do it, _bachem_. We kissed three 
times on the cheek. 

 

We sat in the crowded room, Baba and I next to each other, across from the 
general and his wife. Babas breathing had grown a little ragged, and he kept 


wiping sweat off his forehead and scalp with his handkerchief. He saw me looking 
at him and managed a strained grin. Im all right, he mouthed. 

 

In keeping with tradition, Soraya was not present. 

 

A few moments of small talk and idle chatter followed until the general cleared 
his throat. The room became quiet and everyone looked down at their hands in 
respect. The general nodded toward Baba. 

 

Baba cleared his own throat. When he began, he couldnt speak in complete 
sentences without stopping to breathe. General Sahib, Khanum Jamila jan... its 
with great humility that my son and I... have come to your home today. You 
are... honorable people... from distinguished and reputable families and... 
proud lineage. I come with nothing but the utmost ihtiram... and the highest 
regards for you, your family names, and the memory... of your ancestors. He 
stopped. Caught his breath. Wiped his brow. Amirjan is my only son... my only 
child, and he has been a good son to me. I hope he proves... worthy of your 
kindness. I ask that you honor Amir jan and me... and accept my son into your 
family. 

 

The general nodded politely. 

 

We are honored to welcome the son of a man such as yourself into our family, 
he said. Your reputation precedes you. I was your humble admirer in Kabul and 
remain so today. We are honored that your family and ours will be joined. 

 

Amirjan, as for you, I welcome you to my home as a son, as the husband of my 
daughter who is the noor of my eye. Your pain will be our pain, your joy our 
joy. I hope that you will come to see your Khala Jamila and me as a second set 
of parents, and I pray for your and our lovely Soraya jans happiness. You both 
have our blessings. 

 

Everyone applauded, and with that signal, heads turned toward the hallway. The 
moment Id waited for. 

 

Soraya appeared at the end. Dressed in a stunning winecolored traditional Afghan 
dress with long sleeves and gold trimmings. Babas hand took mine and tightened. 
Khanum Taheri burst into fresh tears. Slowly, Soraya caine to us, tailed by a 
procession of young female relatives. 

 

She kissed my fathers hands. Sat beside me at last, her eyes downcast. 

 

The applause swelled. 

 

 

ACCORDING TO TRADITION, Sorayas family would have thrown the engagement party 
the Shirini-khori---or Eating of the Sweets ceremony. Then an engagement 
period would have followed which would have lasted a few months. Then the 
wedding, which would be paid for by Baba. 

 

We all agreed that Soraya and I would forgo the Shirini-khori. Everyone knew the 
reason, so no one had to actually say it: that Baba didnt have months to live. 

 

Soraya and I never went out alone together while preparations for the wedding 
proceeded--since we werent married yet, hadnt even had a Shirini-khori, it was 
considered improper. So I had to make do with going over to the Taheris with 
Baba for dinner. Sit across from Soraya at the dinner table. Imagine what it 


would be like to feel her head on my chest, smell her hair. Kiss her. Make love 
to her. 

 

Baba spent $35,000, nearly the balance of his life savings, on the awroussi, the 
wedding ceremony. He rented a large Afghan banquet hail in Fremont--the man who 
owned it knew him from Kabul and gave him a substantial discount. Baba paid for 
the ??chi las, our matching wedding bands, and for the diamond ring I picked 
out. He bought my tuxedo, and my traditional green suit for the nika--the 
swearing ceremony. For all the frenzied preparations that went into the wedding 
night--most of it, blessedly, by Khanum Taheri and her friends-- I remember only 
a handful of moments from it. 

 

I remember our nika. We were seated around a table, Soraya and I dressed in 
green--the color of Islam, but also the color of spring and new beginnings. I 
wore a suit, Soraya (the only woman at the table) a veiled long-sleeved dress. 
Baba, General Taheri (in a tuxedo this time), and several of Sorayas uncles 
were also present at the table. Soraya and I looked down, solemnly respectful, 
casting only sideway glances at each other. The mullah questioned the witnesses 
and read from the Koran. We said our oaths. Signed the certificates. One of 
Sorayas uncles from Virginia, Sharif jan, Khanum Taheris brother, stood up and 
cleared his throat. Soraya had told me that he had lived in the U.S. for more 
than twenty years. He worked for the INS and had an American wife. He was also a 
poet. A small man with a birdlike face and fluffy hair, he read a lengthy poem 
dedicated to Soraya, jotted down on hotel stationery paper. Wah wah, 
Sharifjan! everyone exclaimed when he finished. 

 

I remember walking toward the stage, now in my tuxedo, Soraya a veiled pan in 
white, our hands locked. Baba hobbled next to me, the general and his wife 
beside their daughter. A procession of uncles, aunts, and cousins followed as we 
made our way through the hail, parting a sea of applauding guests, blinking at 
flashing cameras. One of Sorayas cousins, Sharif jans son, held a Koran over 
our heads as we inched along. The wedding song, ahesta boro, blared from the 
speakers, the same song the Russian soldier at the Mahipar checkpoint had sung 
the night Baba and I left Kabul: 

 

Make morning into a key and throw it into the well, 

 

Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly. Let the morning sun forget to rise in the 
east, Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly. 

 

I remember sitting on the sofa, set on the stage like a throne, Sorayas hand in 
mine, as three hundred or so faces looked on. We did Ayena Masshaf, where they 
gave us a mirror and threw a veil over our heads, so wed be alone to gaze at 
each others reflection. Looking at Sorayas smiling face in that mirror, in the 
momentary privacy of the veil, I whispered to her for the first time that I 
loved her. A blush, red like henna, bloomed on her cheeks. 

 

I picture colorful platters of chopan kabob, sholeh-goshti, and wild-orange 
rice. I see Baba between us on the sofa, smiling. I remember sweat-drenched men 
dancing the traditional attan in a circle, bouncing, spinning faster and faster 
with the feverish tempo of the tabla, until all but a few dropped out of the 
ring with exhaustion. I remember wishing Rahim Khan were there. 

 

And I remember wondering if Hassan too had married. And if so, whose face he had 
seen in the mirror under the veil? Whose henna-painted hands had he held? 

 

 


AROUND 2 A.M., the party moved from the banquet hall to Babas apartment. Tea 
flowed once more and music played until the neighbors called the cops. Later 
that night, the sun less than an hour from rising and the guests finally gone, 
Soraya and I lay together for the first time. All my life, Id been around men. 
That night, I discovered the tenderness of a woman. 

 

 

IT WAS SORAYA who suggested that she move in with Baba and me. 

 

I thought you might want us to have our own place, I said. 

 

With Kaka jan as sick as he is? she replied. Her eyes told me that was no way 
to start a marriage. I kissed her. Thank you. 

 

Soraya dedicated herself to taking care of my father. She made his toast and tea 
in the morning, and helped him in and out of bed. She gave him his pain pills, 
washed his clothes, read him the international section of the newspaper every 
afternoon, She cooked his favorite dish, potato shorwa, though he could scarcely 
eat more than a few spoonfuls, and took him out every day for a brief walk 
around the block. And when he became bedridden, she turned him on his side every 
hour so he wouldnt get a bedsore. 

 

One day, I came home from the pharmacy with Babas morphine pills. Just as I 
shut the door, I caught a glimpse of Soraya quickly sliding something under 
Babas blanket. Hey, I saw that! What were you two doing? I said. 

 

Nothing, Soraya said, smiling. 

 

Liar. I lifted Babas blanket. Whats this? I said, though as soon as I 
picked up the leather-bound book, I knew. I traced my fingers along the gold-
stitched borders. I remembered the fire works the night Rahim Khan had given it 
to me, the night of my thirteenth birthday, flares sizzling and exploding into 
bouquets of red, green, and yellow. 

 

I cant believe you can write like this, Soraya said. 

 

Baba dragged his head off the pillow. I put her up to it. I hope you dont 
mind. 

 

I gave the notebook back to Soraya and left the room. Baba hated it when I 
cried. 

 

A MONTH AFTER THE WEDDING, the Taheris, Sharif, his wife Suzy, and several of 
Sorayas aunts came over to our apartment for dinner. Soraya made sabzi challow-
-white rice with spinach and lamb. After dinner, we all had green tea and played 
cards in groups of four. Soraya and I played with Sharif and Suzy on the coffee 
table, next to the couch where Baba lay under a wool blanket. He watched me 
joking with Sharif, watched Soraya and me lacing our fingers together, watched 
me push back a loose curl of her hair. I could see his internal smile, as wide 
as the skies of Kabul on nights when the poplars shivered and the sound of 
crickets swelled in the gardens. 

 

Just before midnight, Baba asked us to help him into bed. Soraya and I placed 
his arms on our shoulders and wrapped ours around his back. When we lowered him, 
he had Soraya turn off the bedside lamp. He asked us to lean in, gave us each a 
kiss. 

 


Ill come back with your morphine and a glass of water, Kaka jan, Soraya said. 

 

Not tonight, he said. There is no pain tonight. 

 

Okay, she said. She pulled up his blanket. We closed the door. Baba never woke 
up. 

 

 

THEY FILLED THE PARKING SPOTS at the mosque in Hayward. On the balding grass 
field behind the building, cars and SUVs parked in crowded makeshift rows. 
People had to drive three or four blocks north of the mosque to find a spot. 

 

The mens section of the mosque was a large square room, covered with Afghan 
rugs and thin mattresses placed in parallel lines. Men filed into the room, 
leaving their shoes at the entrance, and sat cross-legged on the mattresses. A 
mullah chanted surrahs from the Koran into a microphone. I sat by the door, the 
customary position for the family of the deceased. General Taheri was seated 
next to me. 

 

Through the open door, I could see lines of cars pulling in, sunlight winking in 
their windshields. They dropped off passengers, men dressed in dark suits, women 
clad in black dresses, their heads covered with traditional white hijabs. 

 

As words from the Koran reverberated through the room, I thought of the old 
story of Baba wrestling a black bear in Baluchistan. Baba had wrestled bears his 
whole life. Losing his young wife. Raising a son by himself. Leaving his beloved 
homeland, his watan. Poverty. Indignity. In the end, a bear had come that he 
couldnt best. But even then, he had lost on his own terms. 

 

After each round of prayers, groups of mourners lined up and greeted me on their 
way out. Dutifully, I shook their hands. Many of them I barely knew I smiled 
politely, thanked them for their wishes, listened to whatever they had to say 
about Baba. 

 

??helped me build the house in Taimani... bless him... 

 

??no one else to turn to and he lent me... 

 

...found me a job... barely knew me... 

 

...like a brother to me... 

 

Listening to them, I realized how much of who I was, what I was, had been 
defined by Baba and the marks he had left on peoples lives. My whole life, I 
had been Babas son. Now he was gone. Baba couldnt show me the way anymore; 
Id have to find it on my own. 

 

The thought of it terrified me. 

 

Earlier, at the gravesite in the small Muslim section of the cemetery, I had 
watched them lower Baba into the hole. The ??mul Iah and another man got into an 
argument over which was the correct ayat of the Koran to recite at the 
gravesite. It might have turned ugly had General Taheri not intervened. The 
mullah chose an ayat and recited it, casting the other fellow nasty glances. I 
watched them toss the first shovelful of dirt into the grave. Then I left. 
Walked to the other side of the cemetery. Sat in the shade of a red maple. 

 


Now the last of the mourners had paid their respects and the mosque was empty, 
save for the mullah unplugging the microphone and wrapping his Koran in green 
cloth. The general and I stepped out into a late-afternoon sun. We walked down 
the steps, past men smoking in clusters. I heard snippets of their 
conversations, a soccer game in Union City next weekend, a new Afghan restaurant 
in Santa Clara. Life moving on already, leaving Baba behind. 

 

How are you, bachem? General Taheri said. 

 

I gritted my teeth. Bit back the tears that had threatened all day. Im going 
to find Soraya, I said. 

 

Okay. 

 

I walked to the womens side of the mosque. Soraya was standing on the steps 
with her mother and a couple of ladies I recognized vaguely from the wedding. I 
motioned to Soraya. She said something to her mother and came to me. 

 

Can we walk? I said. 

 

Sure. She took my hand. 

 

We walked in silence down a winding gravel path lined by a row of low hedges. We 
sat on a bench and watched an elderly couple kneeling beside a grave a few rows 
away and placing a bouquet of daisies by the headstone. Soraya? 

 

Yes? 

 

Im going to miss him. 

 

She put her hand on my lap. Babas chila glinted on her ring finger. Behind her, 
I could see Babas mourners driving away on Mission Boulevard. Soon wed leave 
too, and for the first time ever, Baba would be all alone. 

 

Soraya pulled me to her and the tears finally came. 

 

 

BECAUSE SORAYA AND I never had an engagement period, much of what I learned 
about the Taheris I learned after I married into their family. For example, I 
learned that, once a month, the general suffered from blinding migraines that 
lasted almost a week. When the headaches struck, the general went to his room, 
undressed, turned off the light, locked the door, and didnt come out until the 
pain subsided. No one was allowed to go in, no one was allowed to knock. 
Eventually, he would emerge, dressed in his gray suit once more, smelling of 
sleep and bedsheets, his eyes puffy and bloodshot. I learned from Soraya that he 
and Khanum Taheri had slept in separate rooms for as long as she could remember. 
I learned that he could be petty, such as when hed take a bite of the _qurma_ 
his wife placed before him, sigh, and push it away. Ill make you something 
else, Khanum Taheri would say, but hed ignore her, sulk, and eat bread and 
onion. This made Soraya angry and her mother cry. Soraya told me he took antide 
pressants. I learned that he had kept his family on welfare and had never held a 
job in the U.S., preferring to cash government-issued checks than degrading 
himself with work unsuitable for a man of his stature--he saw the flea market 
only as a hobby, a way to socialize with his fellow Afghans. The general 
believed that, sooner or later, Afghanistan would be freed, the monarchy 
restored, and his services would once again be called upon. So every day, he 
donned his gray suit, wound his pocket watch, and waited. 


 

I learned that Khanum Taheri--whom I called Khala Jamila now--had once been 
famous in Kabul for her enchanting singing voice. Though she had never sung 
professionally, she had had the talent to--I learned she could sing folk songs, 
ghazals, even raga, which was usually a mans domain. But as much as the general 
appreciated listening to music--he owned, in fact, a considerable collection of 
classical ghazal tapes by Afghan and Hindi singers--he believed the performing 
of it best left to those with lesser reputations. That she never sing in public 
had been one of the generals conditions when they had married. Soraya told me 
that her mother had wanted to sing at our wedding, only one song, but the 
general gave her one of his looks and the matter was buried. Khala Jamila played 
the lotto once a week and watched Johnny Carson every night. She spent her days 
in the garden, tending to her roses, geraniums, potato vines, and orchids. 

 

When I married Soraya, the flowers and Johnny Carson took a backseat. I was the 
new delight in Khala Jamilas life. Unlike the generals guarded and diplomatic 
manners--he didnt correct me when I continued to call him General Sahib--
Khala Jamila made no secret of how much she adored me. For one thing, I listened 
to her impressive list of maladies, something the general had long turned a deaf 
ear to. Soraya told me that, ever since her mothers stroke, every flutter in 
her chest was a heart attack, every aching joint the onset of rheumatoid 
arthritis, and every twitch of the eye another stroke. I remember the first time 
Khala Jamila mentioned a lump in her neck to me. Ill skip school tomorrow and 
take you to the doctor, I said, to which the general smiled and said, Then you 
might as well turn in your books for good, bachem. Your khalas medical charts 
are like the works of Rumi: They come in volumes. 

 

But it wasnt just that shed found an audience for her monologues of illness. I 
firmly believed that if I had picked up a rifle and gone on a murdering rampage, 
I would have still had the benefit of her unblinking love. Because I had rid her 
heart of its gravest malady. I had relieved her of the greatest fear of every 
Afghan mother: that no honorable khastegar would ask for her daughters hand. 
That her daughter would age alone, husbandless, childless. Every woman needed a 
husband. Even if he did silence the song in her. 

 

And, from Soraya, I learned the details of what had happened in Virginia. 

 

We were at a wedding. Sorayas uncle, Sharif, the one who worked for the INS, 
was marrying his son to an Afghan girl from Newark. The wedding was at the same 
hall where, six months prior, Soraya and I had had our awroussi. We were 
standing in a crowd of guests, watching the bride accept rings from the grooms 
family, when we overheard two middle-aged women talking, their backs to us. 

 

What a lovely bride, one of them said, Just look at her. So maghbool, like 
the moon. 

 

Yes, the other said. And pure too. Virtuous. No boyfriends. 

 

I know. I tell you that boy did well not to marry his cousin. 

 

Soraya broke down on the way home. I pulled the Ford off to the curb, parked 
under a streetlight on Fremont Boulevard. 

 

Its all right, I said, pushing back her hair. Who cares? 

 

Its so fucking unfair, she barked. 


Just forget it. 

 

Their sons go out to nightclubs looking for meat and get their girlfriends 
pregnant, they have kids out of wedlock and no one says a goddamn thing. Oh, 
theyre just men having fun! I make one mistake and suddenly everyone is talking 
nang and namoos, and I have to have my face rubbed in it for the rest of my 
life. 

 

I wiped a tear from her jawline, just above her birthmark, with the pad of my 
thumb. 

 

I didnt tell you, Soraya said, dabbing at her eyes, but my father showed up 
with a gun that night. He told... him... that he had two bullets in the chamber, 
one for him and one for himself if I didnt come home. I was screaming, calling 
my father all kinds of names, saying he couldnt keep me locked up forever, that 
I wished he were dead. Fresh tears squeezed out between her lids. I actually 
said that to him, that I wished he were dead. 

 

When he brought me home, my mother threw her arms around me and she was crying 
too. She was saying things but I couldnt understand any of it because she was 
slurring her words so badly. So my father took me up to my bedroom and sat me in 
front of the dresser mirror. He handed me a pair of scissors and calmly told me 
to cut off all my hair. He watched while I did it. 

 

I didnt step out of the house for weeks. And when I did, I heard whispers or 
imagined them everywhere I went. That was four years ago and three thousand 
miles away and Im still hearing them. 

 

Fuck em, I said. 

 

She made a sound that was half sob, half laugh. When I told you about this on 
the phone the night of khastegari, I was sure youd change your mind. 

 

No chance of that, Soraya. 

 

She smiled and took my hand. Im so lucky to have found you. Youre so 
different from every Afghan guy Ive met. 

 

Lets never talk about this again, okay? 

 

Okay. 

 

I kissed her cheek and pulled away from the curb. As I drove, I wondered why I 
was different. Maybe it was because I had been raised by men; I hadnt grown up 
around women and had never been exposed firsthand to the double standard with 
which Afghan society sometimes treated them. Maybe it was because Baba had been 
such an unusual Afghan father, a liberal who had lived by his own rules, a 
maverick who had disregarded or embraced societal customs as he had seen fit. 

 

But I think a big part of the reason I didnt care about Sorayas past was that 
I had one of my own. I knew all about regret. 

 

 

SHORTLY AFTER BABAS DEATH, Soraya and I moved into a one-bedroom apartment in 
Fremont, just a few blocks away from the general and Khala Jamilas house. 
Sorayas parents bought us a brown leather couch and a set of Mikasa dishes as 


housewarming presents. The general gave me an additional present, a brand new 
IBM typewriter. In the box, he had slipped a note written in Farsi: 

 

 

Amir jan, 

 

I hope you discover many tales on these keys. 

 

General Iqbal Taheri 

 

 

I sold Babas VW bus and, to this day, I have not gone back to the flea market. 
I would drive to his gravesite every Friday, and, sometimes, Id find a fresh 
bouquet of freesias by the headstone and know Soraya had been there too. 

 

Soraya and I settled into the routines--and minor wonders-- of married life. We 
shared toothbrushes and socks, passed each other the morning paper. She slept on 
the right side of the bed, I preferred the left. She liked fluffy pillows, I 
liked the hard ones. She ate her cereal dry, like a snack, and chased it with 
milk. 

 

I got my acceptance at San Jose State that summer and declared an English major. 
I took on a security job, swing shift at a furniture warehouse in Sunnyvale. The 
job was dreadfully boring, but its saving grace was a considerable one: When 
everyone left at 6 P.M. and shadows began to crawl between aisles of plastic-
covered sofas piled to the ceiling, I took out my books and studied. It was in 
the Pine-Sol-scented office of that furniture warehouse that I began my first 
novel. 

 

Soraya joined me at San Jose State the following year and enrolled, to her 
fathers chagrin, in the teaching track. 

 

I dont know why youre wasting your talents like this, the general said one 
night over dinner. Did you know, Amir jan, that she earned nothing but As in 
high school? He turned to her. An intelligent girl like you could become a 
lawyer, a political scientist. And, _Inshallah_, when Afghanistan is free, you 
could help write the new constitution. There would be a need for young talented 
Afghans like you. They might even offer you a ministry position, given your 
family name. 

 

I could see Soraya holding back, her face tightening. Im not a girl, Padar. 
Im a married woman. Besides, theyd need teachers too. 

 

Anyone can teach. 

 

Is there any more rice, Madar? Soraya said. 

 

After the general excused himself to meet some friends in Hayward, Khala Jamila 
tried to console Soraya. He means well, she said. He just wants you to be 
successful. 

 

So he can boast about his attorney daughter to his friends. Another medal for 
the general, Soraya said. 

 

Such nonsense you speak! 

 


Successful, Soraya hissed. At least Im not like him, sitting around while 
other people fight the Shorawi, waiting for when the dust settles so he can move 
in and reclaim his posh little government position. Teaching may not pay much, 
but its what I want to do! Its what I love, and its a whole lot better than 
collecting welfare, by the way. 

 

Khala Jamila bit her tongue. If he ever hears you saying that, he will never 
speak to you again. 

 

Dont worry, Soraya snapped, tossing her napkin on the plate. I wont bruise 
his precious ego. 

 

 

IN THE SUMMER of 1988, about six months before the Soviets withdrew from 
Afghanistan, I finished my first novel, a father-son story set in Kabul, written 
mostly with the typewriter the general had given me. I sent query letters to a 
dozen agencies and was stunned one August day when I opened our mailbox and 
found a request from a New York agency for the completed manuscript. I mailed it 
the next day. Soraya kissed the carefully wrapped manuscript and Khala Jamila 
insisted we pass it under the Koran. She told me that she was going to do nazr 
for me, a vow to have a sheep slaughtered and the meat given to the poor if my 
book was accepted. 

 

Please, no nazn, Khala jan, I said, kissing her face. Just do _zakat_, give 
the money to someone in need, okay? No sheep killing. 

 

Six weeks later, a man named Martin Greenwalt called from New York and offered 
to represent me. I only told Soraya about it. But just because I have an agent 
doesnt mean Ill get published. If Martin sells the novel, then well 
celebrate. 

 

A month later, Martin called and informed me I was going to be a published 
novelist. When I told Soraya, she screamed. 

 

We had a celebration dinner with Sorayas parents that night. Khala Jamila made 
kofta--meatballs and white rice--and white ferni. The general, a sheen of 
moisture in his eyes, said that he was proud of me. After General Taheri and his 
wife left, Soraya and I celebrated with an expensive bottle of Merlot I had 
bought on the way home--the general did not approve of women drinking alcohol, 
and Soraya didnt drink in his presence. 

 

I am so proud of you, she said, raising her glass to mine. Kaka would have 
been proud too. 

 

I know, I said, thinking of Baba, wishing he could have seen me. 

 

Later that night, after Soraya fell asleep--wine always made her sleepy--I stood 
on the balcony and breathed in the cool summer air. I thought of Rahim Khan and 
the little note of support he had written me after hed read my first story. And 
I thought of Hassan. Some day, _Inshallah_, you will be a great writer, he had 
said once, and people all over the world will read your stories. There was so 
much goodness in my life. So much happiness. I wondered whether I deserved any 
of it. 

 

The novel was released in the summer of that following year, 1989, and the 
publisher sent me on a five-city book tour. I became a minor celebrity in the 
Afghan community. That was the year that the Shorawi completed their withdrawal 


from Afghanistan. It should have been a time of glory for Afghans. Instead, the 
war raged on, this time between Afghans, the Mujahedin, against the Soviet 
puppet government of Najibullah, and Afghan refugees kept flocking to Pakistan. 
That was the year that the cold war ended, the year the Berlin Wall came down. 
It was the year of Tiananmen Square. In the midst of it all, Afghanistan was 
forgotten. And General Taheri, whose hopes had stirred awake after the Soviets 
pulled out, went back to winding his pocket watch. 

 

That was also the year that Soraya and I began trying to have a child. 

 

 

THE IDEA OF FATHERHOOD unleashed a swirl of emotions in me. I found it 
frightening, invigorating, daunting, and exhilarating all at the same time. What 
sort of father would I make, I wondered. I wanted to be just like Baba and I 
wanted to be nothing like him. 

 

But a year passed and nothing happened. With each cycle of blood, Soraya grew 
more frustrated, more impatient, more irritable. By then, Khala Jamilas 
initially subtle hints had become overt, as in Kho dega! So! When am I going 
to sing alahoo for my little nawasa? The general, ever the Pashtun, never made 
any queries--doing so meant alluding to a sexual act between his daughter and a 
man, even if the man in question had been married to her for over four years. 
But his eyes perked up when Khala Jamila teased us about a baby. 

 

Sometimes, it takes a while, I told Soraya one night. 

 

A year isnt a while, Amir! she said, in a terse voice so unlike her. 
Somethings wrong, I know it. 

 

Then lets see a doctor. 

 

DR. ROSEN, a round-bellied man with a plump face and small, even teeth, spoke 
with a faint Eastern European accent, some thing remotely Slavic. He had a 
passion for trains--his office was littered with books about the history of 
railroads, model locomotives, paintings of trains trundling on tracks through 
green hills and over bridges. A sign above his desk read, LIFE IS A TRAIN. GET 
ON BOARD. 

 

He laid out the plan for us. Id get checked first. Men are easy, he said, 
fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. A mans plumbing is like his mind: 
simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand... well, God put a lot 
of thought into making you. I wondered if he fed that bit about the plumbing to 
all of his couples. 

 

Lucky us, Soraya said. 

 

Dr. Rosen laughed. It fell a few notches short of genuine. He gave me a lab slip 
and a plastic jar, handed Soraya a request for some routine blood tests. We 
shook hands. Welcome aboard, he said, as he showed us out. 

 

 

I PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS. 

 

The next few months were a blur of tests on Soraya: Basal body temperatures, 
blood tests for every conceivable hormone, urine tests, something called a 
Cervical Mucus Test, ultrasounds, more blood tests, and more urine tests. 
Soraya underwent a procedure called a hysteroscopy--Dr. Rosen inserted a 


telescope into Sorayas uterus and took a look around. He found nothing. The 
plumbings clear, he announced, snapping off his latex gloves. I wished hed 
stop calling it that--we werent bathrooms. When the tests were over, he 
explained that he couldnt explain why we couldnt have kids. And, apparently, 
that wasnt so unusual. It was called Unexplained Infertility. 

 

Then came the treatment phase. We tried a drug called Clomiphene, and hMG, a 
series of shots which Soraya gave to herself. When these failed, Dr. Rosen 
advised in vitro fertilization. We received a polite letter from our HMO, 
wishing us the best of luck, regretting they couldnt cover the cost. 

 

We used the advance I had received for my novel to pay for it. IVF proved 
lengthy, meticulous, frustrating, and ultimately unsuccessful. After months of 
sitting in waiting rooms reading magazines like Good Housekeeping and Readers 
Digest, after endless paper gowns and cold, sterile exam rooms lit by 
fluorescent lights, the repeated humiliation of discussing every detail of our 
sex life with a total stranger, the injections and probes and specimen 
collections, we went back to Dr. Rosen and his trains. 

 

He sat across from us, tapped his desk with his fingers, and used the word 
adoption for the first time. Soraya cried all the way home. 

 

Soraya broke the news to her parents the weekend after our last visit with Dr. 
Rosen. We were sitting on picnic chairs in the Taheris backyard, grilling trout 
and sipping yogurt dogh. It was an early evening in March 1991. Khala Jamila had 
watered the roses and her new honeysuckles, and their fragrance mixed with the 
smell of cooking fish. Twice already, she had reached across her chair to caress 
Sorayas hair and say, God knows best, bachem. Maybe it wasnt meant to be. 

 

Soraya kept looking down at her hands. She was tired, I knew, tired of it all. 
The doctor said we could adopt, she murmured. 

 

General Taheris head snapped up at this. He closed the barbecue lid. He did? 

 

He said it was an option, Soraya said. 

 

Wed talked at home about adoption. Soraya was ambivalent at best. I know its 
silly and maybe vain, she said to me on the way to her parents house, but I 
cant help it. Ive always dreamed that Id hold it in my arms and know my blood 
had fed it for nine months, that Id look in its eyes one day and be startled to 
see you or me, that the baby would grow up and have your smile or mine. Without 
that... Is that wrong? 

 

No, I had said. 

 

Am I being selfish? 

 

No, Soraya. 

 

Because if you really want to do it... 

 

No, I said. If were going to do it, we shouldnt have any doubts at all 
about it, and we should both be in agreement. It wouldnt be fair to the baby 
otherwise. 

 

She rested her head on the window and said nothing else the rest of the way. 

 


Now the general sat beside her. Bachem, this adoption... thing, Im not so sure 
its for us Afghans. Soraya looked at me tiredly and sighed. 

 

For one thing, they grow up and want to know who their natural parents are, he 
said. Nor can you blame them. Sometimes, they leave the home in which you 
labored for years to provide for them so they can find the people who gave them 
life. Blood is a powerful thing, bachem, never forget that. 

 

I dont want to talk about this anymore, Soraya said. 

 

Ill say one more thing, he said. I could tell he was getting revved up; we 
were about to get one of the generals little speeches. Take Amir jan, here. We 
all knew his father, I know who his grandfather was in Kabul and his great-
grandfather before him, I could sit here and trace generations of his ancestors 
for you if you asked. Thats why when his father--God give him peace--came 
khastegari, I didnt hesitate. And believe me, his father wouldnt have agreed 
to ask for your hand if he didnt know whose descendant you were. Blood is a 
powerful thing, bachem, and when you adopt, you dont know whose blood youre 
bringing into your house. 

 

Now, if you were American, it wouldnt matter. People here marry for love, 
family name and ancestry never even come into the equation. They adopt that way 
too, as long as the baby is healthy, everyone is happy. But we are Afghans, 
bachem. 

 

Is the fish almost ready? Soraya said. General Taheris eyes lingered on her. 
He patted her knee. Just be happy you have your health and a good husband. 

 

What do you think, Amir jan? Khala Jamila said. 

 

I put my glass on the ledge, where a row of her potted geraniums were dripping 
water. I think I agree with General Sahib. 

 

Reassured, the general nodded and went back to the grill. 

 

We all had our reasons for not adopting. Soraya had hers, the general his, and I 
had this: that perhaps something, someone, somewhere, had decided to deny me 
fatherhood for the things I had done. Maybe this was my punishment, and perhaps 
justly so. It wasnt meant to be, Khala Jamila had said. Or, maybe, it was meant 
not to be. 

 

 

A FEW MONTHS LATER, we used the advance for my second novel and placed a down 
payment on a pretty, two-bedroom Victorian house in San Franciscos Bernal 
Heights. It had a peaked roof, hardwood floors, and a tiny backyard which ended 
in a sun deck and a fire pit. The general helped me refinish the deck and paint 
the walls. Khala Jamila bemoaned us moving almost an hour away, especially since 
she thought Soraya needed all the love and support she could get--oblivious to 
the fact that her well-intended but overbearing sympathy was precisely what was 
driving Soraya to move. 

 

 

SOMETIMES, SORAYA SLEEPING NEXT TO ME, I lay in bed and listened to the screen 
door swinging open and shut with the breeze, to the crickets chirping in the 
yard. And I could almost feel the emptiness in Sorayas womb, like it was a 
living, breathing thing. It had seeped into our marriage, that emptiness, into 
our laughs, and our lovemaking. And late at night, in the darkness of our room, 


Id feel it rising from Soraya and settling between us. Sleeping between us. 
Like a newborn child. 

 

FOURTEEN 

 

_June 2001_ 

 

I lowered the phone into the cradle and stared at it for a long time. It wasnt 
until Aflatoon startled me with a bark that I realized how quiet the room had 
become. Soraya had muted the television. 

 

You look pale, Amir, she said from the couch, the same one her parents had 
given us as a housewarming gift for our first apartment. Shed been tying on it 
with Aflatoons head nestled on her chest, her legs buried under the worn 
pillows. She was halfwatching a PBS special on the plight of wolves in 
Minnesota, half-correcting essays from her summer-school class--shed been 
teaching at the same school now for six years. She sat up, and Aflatoon leapt 
down from the couch. It was the general who had given our cocker spaniel his 
name, Farsi for Plato, because, he said, if you looked hard enough and long 
enough into the dogs filmy black eyes, youd swear he was thinking wise 
thoughts. 

 

There was a sliver of fat, just a hint of it, beneath Sorayas chin now The past 
ten years had padded the curves of her hips some, and combed into her coal black 
hair a few streaks of cinder gray. But she still had the face of a Grand Ball 
princess, with her bird-in-flight eyebrows and nose, elegantly curved like a 
letter from ancient Arabic writings. 

 

You took pale, Soraya repeated, placing the stack of papers on the table. 

 

I have to go to Pakistan. 

 

She stood up now. Pakistan? 

 

Rahim Khan is very sick. A fist clenched inside me with those words. 

 

Kakas old business partner? Shed never met Rahim Khan, but I had told her 
about him. I nodded. 

 

Oh, she said. Im so sorry, Amir. 

 

We used to be close, I said. When I was a kid, he was the first grown-up I 
ever thought of as a friend. I pictured him and Baba drinking tea in Babas 
study, then smoking near the window, a sweetbrier-scented breeze blowing from 
the garden and bending the twin columns of smoke. 

 

I remember you telling me that, Soraya said. She paused. How long will you be 
gone? 

 

I dont know. He wants to see me. 

 

Is it... 

 

Yes, its safe. Ill be all right, Soraya. It was the question shed wanted to 
ask all along--fifteen years of marriage had turned us into mind readers. Im 
going to go for a walk. 

 


Should I go with you? 

 

Nay, Id rather be alone. 

 

 

I DROVE TO GOLDEN GATE PARK and walked along Spreckels Lake on the northern edge 
of the park. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon; the sun sparkled on the water 
where dozens of miniature boats sailed, propelled by a crisp San Francisco 
breeze. I sat on a park bench, watched a man toss a football to his son, telling 
him to not sidearm the ball, to throw over the shoulder. I glanced up and saw a 
pair of kites, red with long blue tails. They floated high above the trees on 
the west end of the park, over the windmills. 

 

I thought about a comment Rahim Khan had made just before we hung up. Made it in 
passing, almost as an afterthought. I closed my eyes and saw him at the other 
end of the scratchy longdistance line, saw him with his lips slightly parted, 
head tilted to one side. And again, something in his bottomless black eyes 
hinted at an unspoken secret between us. Except now I knew he knew. My 
suspicions had been right all those years. He knew about Assef, the kite, the 
money, the watch with the lightning bolt hands. He had always known. 

 

Come. There is a way to be good again, Rahim Khan had said on the phone just 
before hanging up. Said it in passing, almost as an afterthought. 

 

A way to be good again. 

 

 

WHEN I CAME HOME, Soraya was on the phone with her mother. Wont be long, 
Madarjan. A week, maybe two... Yes, you and Padar can stay with me. 

 

Two years earlier, the general had broken his right hip. Hed had one of his 
migraines again, and emerging from his room, bleary-eyed and dazed, he had 
tripped on a loose carpet edge. His scream had brought Khala Jamila running from 
the kitchen. It sounded like a jaroo, a broomstick, snapping in half, she was 
always fond of saying, though the doctor had said it was unlikely shed heard 
anything of the sort. The generals shattered hip--and all of the ensuing 
complications, the pneumonia, blood poisoning, the protracted stay at the 
nursing home--ended Khala Jamilas long-running soliloquies about her own 
health. And started new ones about the generals. Shed tell anyone who would 
listen that the doctors had told them his kidneys were failing. But then they 
had never seen Afghan kidneys, had they? shed say proudly. What I remember 
most about the generals hospital stay is how Khala Jamila would wait until he 
fell asleep, and then sing to him, songs I remembered from Kabul, playing on 
Babas scratchy old transistor radio. 

 

The generals frailty--and time--had softened things between him and Soraya too. 
They took walks together, went to lunch on Saturdays, and, sometimes, the 
general sat in on some of her classes. Hed sit in the back of the room, dressed 
in his shiny old gray suit, wooden cane across his lap, smiling. Sometimes he 
even took notes. 

 

 

THAT NIGHT, Soraya and I lay in bed, her back pressed to my chest, my face 
buried in her hair. I remembered when we used to lay forehead to forehead, 
sharing afterglow kisses and whispering until our eyes drifted closed, 
whispering about tiny, curled toes, first smiles, first words, first steps. We 
still did sometimes, but the whispers were about school, my new book, a giggle 


over someones ridiculous dress at a party. Our lovemaking was still good, at 
times better than good, but some nights all Id feel was a relief to be done 
with it, to be free to drift away and forget, at least for a while, about the 
futility of what wed just done. She never said so, but I knew sometimes Soraya 
felt it too. On those nights, wed each roll to our side of the bed and let our 
own savior take us away. Sorayas was sleep. Mine, as always, was a book. 

 

I lay in the dark the night Rahim Khan called and traced with my eyes the 
parallel silver lines on the wall made by moonlight pouring through the blinds. 
At some point, maybe just before dawn, I drifted to sleep. And dreamed of Hassan 
running in the snow, the hem of his green chapan dragging behind him, snow 
crunching under his black rubber boots. He was yelling over his shoulder: For 
you, a thousand times over! 

 

 

A WEEK LATER, I sat on a window seat aboard a Pakistani International Airlines 
flight, watching a pair of uniformed airline workers remove the wheel chocks. 
The plane taxied out of the terminal and, soon, we were airborne, cutting 
through the clouds. I rested my head against the window. Waited, in vain, for 
sleep. 

 

FIFTEEN 

 

Three hours after my flight landed in Peshawar, I was sitting on shredded 
upholstery in the backseat of a smoke-filled taxicab. My driver, a chain-
smoking, sweaty little man who introduced himself as Gholam, drove nonchalantly 
and recklessly, averting collisions by the thinnest of margins, all without so 
much as a pause in the incessant stream of words spewing from his mouth: 

 

??terrible what is happening in your country, yar. Afghani people and Pakistani 
people they are like brothers, I tell you. Muslims have to help Muslims so... 

 

I tuned him out, switched to a polite nodding mode. I remembered Peshawar pretty 
well from the few months Baba and I had spent there in 1981. We were heading 
west now on Jamrud road, past the Cantonment and its lavish, high-walled homes. 
The bustle of the city blurring past me reminded me of a busier, more crowded 
version of the Kabul I knew, particularly of the KochehMorgha, or Chicken 
Bazaar, where Hassan and I used to buy chutney-dipped potatoes and cherry water. 
The streets were clogged with bicycle riders, milling pedestrians, and rickshaws 
popping blue smoke, all weaving through a maze of narrow lanes and alleys. 
Bearded vendors draped in thin blankets sold animalskin lampshades, carpets, 
embroidered shawls, and copper goods from rows of small, tightly jammed stalls. 
The city was bursting with sounds; the shouts of vendors rang in my ears mingled 
with the blare of Hindi music, the sputtering of rickshaws, and the jingling 
bells of horse-drawn carts. Rich scents, both pleasant and not so pleasant, 
drifted to me through the passenger window, the spicy aroma of pakora and the 
nihari Baba had loved so much blended with the sting of diesel fumes, the stench 
of rot, garbage, and feces. 

 

A little past the redbrick buildings of Peshawar University, we entered an area 
my garrulous driver referred to as Afghan Town. I saw sweetshops and carpet 
vendors, kabob stalls, kids with dirtcaked hands selling cigarettes, tiny 
restaurants--maps of Afghanistan painted on their windows--all interlaced with 
backstreet aid agencies. Many of your brothers in this area, yar. They are 
opening businesses, but most of them are very poor. He tsked his tongue and 
sighed. Anyway, were getting close now. 

 


I thought about the last time I had seen Rahim Khan, in 1981. He had come to say 
good-bye the night Baba and I had fled Kabul. I remember Baba and him embracing 
in the foyer, crying softly. When Baba and I arrived in the U.S., he and Rahim 
Khan kept in touch. They would speak four or five times a year and, sometimes, 
Baba would pass me the receiver. The last time I had spoken to Rahim Khan had 
been shortly after Babas death. The news had reached Kabul and he had called. 
Wed only spoken for a few minutes and lost the connection. 

 

The driver pulled up to a narrow building at a busy corner where two winding 
streets intersected. I paid the driver, took my lone suitcase, and walked up to 
the intricately carved door. The building had wooden balconies with open 
shutters--from many of them, laundry was hanging to dry in the sun. I walked up 
the creaky stairs to the second floor, down a dim hallway to the last door on 
the right. Checked the address on the piece of stationery paper in my palm. 
Knocked. 

 

Then, a thing made of skin and bones pretending to be Rahim Khan opened the 
door. 

 

 

A CREATIVE WRITING TEACHER at San Jose State used to say about clichs: Avoid 
them like the plague. Then hed laugh at his own joke. The class laughed along 
with him, but I always thought clichs got a bum rap. Because, often, theyre 
dead-on. But the aptness of the clichd saying is overshadowed by the nature of 
the saying as a clich. For example, the elephant in the room saying. Nothing 
could more correctly describe the initial moments of my reunion with Rahim Khan. 

 

We sat on a wispy mattress set along the wall, across the window overlooking the 
noisy street below. Sunlight slanted in and cast a triangular wedge of light 
onto the Afghan rug on the floor. Two folding chairs rested against one wall and 
a small copper samovar sat in the opposite corner. I poured us tea from it. 

 

How did you find me? I asked. 

 

Its not difficult to find people in America. I bought a map of the U.S., and 
called up information for cities in Northern California, he said. Its 
wonderfully strange to see you as a grown man. 

 

I smiled and dropped three sugar cubes in my tea. He liked his black and bitter, 
I remembered. Baba didnt get the chance to tell you but I got married fifteen 
years ago. The truth was, by then, the cancer in Babas brain had made him 
forgetful, negligent. 

 

You are married? To whom? 

 

Her name is Soraya Taheri. I thought of her back home, worrying about me. I 
was glad she wasnt alone. 

 

Taheri... whose daughter is she? 

 

I told him. His eyes brightened. Oh, yes, I remember now. Isnt General Taheri 
married to Sharif jans sister? What was her name... 

 

Jamila jan. 

 

Balay! he said, smiling. I knew Sharif jan in Kabul, long time ago, before he 
moved to America. 


 

Hes been working for the INS for years, handles a lot of Afghan cases. 

 

Haiiii, he sighed. Do you and Soraya jan have children? 

 

Nay. 

 

Oh. He slurped his tea and didnt ask more; Rahim Khan had always been one of 
the most instinctive people Id ever met. 

 

I told him a lot about Baba, his job, the flea market, and how, at the end, hed 
died happy. I told him about my schooling, my books--four published novels to my 
credit now. He smiled at this, said he had never had any doubt. I told him I had 
written short stories in the leather-bound notebook hed given me, but he didnt 
remember the notebook. 

 

The conversation inevitably turned to the Taliban. 

 

Is it as bad as I hear? I said. 

 

Nay, its worse. Much worse, he said. They dont let you be human. He 
pointed to a scar above his right eye cutting a crooked path through his bushy 
eyebrow. I was at a soccer game in Ghazi Stadium in 1998. Kabul against Mazar-
i-Sharif, I think, and by the way the players werent allowed to wear shorts. 
Indecent exposure, I guess. He gave a tired laugh. Anyway, Kabul scored a goal 
and the man next to me cheered loudly. Suddenly this young bearded fellow who 
was patrolling the aisles, eighteen years old at most by the look of him, he 
walked up to me and struck me on the forehead with the butt of his Kalashnikov. 
Do that again and Ill cut out your tongue, you old donkey! he said. Rahim 
Khan rubbed the scar with a gnarled finger. I was old enough to be his 
grandfather and I was sitting there, blood gushing down my face, apologizing to 
that son of a dog. 

 

I poured him more tea. Rahim Khan talked some more. Much of it I knew already, 
some not. He told me that, as arranged between Baba and him, he had lived in 
Babas house since 1981--this I knew about. Baba had sold the house to Rahim 
Khan shortly before he and I fled Kabul. The way Baba had seen it those days, 
Afghanistans troubles were only a temporary interruption of our way of life--
the days of parties at the Wazir Akbar Khan house and picnics in Paghman would 
surely return. So hed given the house to Rahim Khan to keep watch over until 
that day. 

 

Rahim Khan told me how, when the Northern Alliance took over Kabul between 1992 
and 1996, different factions claimed different parts of Kabul. If you went from 
the Shar-e-Nau section to Kerteh-Parwan to buy a carpet, you risked getting shot 
by a sniper or getting blown up by a rocket--if you got past all the 
checkpoints, that was. You practically needed a visa to go from one neighborhood 
to the other. So people just stayed put, prayed the next rocket wouldnt hit 
their home. He told me how people knocked holes in the walls of their homes so 
they could bypass the dangerous streets and would move down the block from hole 
to hole. In other parts, people moved about in underground tunnels. 

 

Why didnt you leave? I said. 

 

Kabul was my home. It still is. He snickered. Remember the street that went 
from your house to the Qishla, the military bar racks next to Istiqial School? 

 


Yes. It was the shortcut to school. I remembered the day Hassan and I crossed 
it and the soldiers had teased Hassan about his mother. Hassan had cried in the 
cinema later, and Id put an arm around him. 

 

When the Taliban rolled in and kicked the Alliance out of Kabul, I actually 
danced on that street, Rahim Khan said. And, believe me, I wasnt alone. 
People were celebrating at _Chaman_, at Deh-Mazang, greeting the Taliban in the 
streets, climbing their tanks and posing for pictures with them. People were so 
tired of the constant fighting, tired of the rockets, the gunfire, the 
explosions, tired of watching Gulbuddin and his cohorts firing on any thing that 
moved. The Alliance did more damage to Kabul than the Shorawi. They destroyed 
your fathers orphanage, did you know that? 

 

Why? I said. Why would they destroy an orphanage? I remembered sitting 
behind Baba the day they opened the orphanage. The wind had knocked off his 
caracul hat and everyone had laughed, then stood and clapped when hed delivered 
his speech. And now it was just another pile of rubble. All the money Baba had 
spent, all those nights hed sweated over the blueprints, all the visits to the 
construction site to make sure every brick, every beam, and every block was laid 
just right... 

 

Collateral damage, Rahim Khan said. You dont want to know, Amir jan, what it 
was like sifting through the rubble of that orphanage. There were body parts of 
children... 

 

So when the Taliban came... 

 

They were heroes, Rahim Khan said. Peace at last. 

 

Yes, hope is a strange thing. Peace at last. But at what price? A violent 
coughing fit gripped Rahim Khan and rocked his gaunt body back and forth. When 
he spat into his handkerchief, it immediately stained red. I thought that was as 
good a time as any to address the elephant sweating with us in the tiny room. 

 

How are you? I asked. I mean really, how are you? 

 

Dying, actually, he said in a gurgling voice. Another round of coughing. More 
blood on the handkerchief. He wiped his mouth, blotted his sweaty brow from one 
wasted temple to the other with his sleeve, and gave me a quick glance. When he 
nodded, I knew he had read the next question on my face. Not long, he 
breathed. 

 

How long? 

 

He shrugged. Coughed again. I dont think Ill see the end of this summer, he 
said. 

 

Let me take you home with me. I can find you a good doctor. Theyre coming up 
with new treatments all the time. There are new drugs and experimental 
treatments, we could enroll you in one... I was rambling and I knew it. But it 
was better than crying, which I was probably going to do anyway. 

 

He let out a chuff of laughter, revealed missing lower incisors. It was the most 
tired laughter Id ever heard. I see America has infused you with the optimism 
that has made her so great. Thats very good. Were a melancholic people, we 
Afghans, arent we? Often, we wallow too much in ghamkhori and self-pity. We 
give in to loss, to suffering, accept it as a fact of life, even see it as 


necessary. Zendagi migzara, we say, life goes on. But I am not surrendering to 
fate here, I am being pragmatic. I have seen several good doctors here and they 
have given the same answer. I trust them and believe them. There is such a thing 
as Gods will. 

 

There is only what you do and what you dont do, I said. 

 

Rahim Khan laughed. You sounded like your father just now. I miss him so much. 
But it is Gods will, Amir jan. It really is. He paused. Besides, theres 
another reason I asked you to come here. I wanted to see you before I go, yes, 
but something else too. 

 

Anything. 

 

You know all those years I lived in your fathers house after you left? 

 

Yes. 

 

I wasnt alone for all of them. Hassan lived there with me. 

 

Hassan, I said. When was the last time I had spoken his name? Those thorny old 
barbs of guilt bore into me once more, as if speaking his name had broken a 
spell, set them free to torment me anew. Suddenly the air in Rahim Khans little 
flat was too thick, too hot, too rich with the smell of the street. 

 

I thought about writing you and telling you before, but I wasnt sure you 
wanted to know. Was I wrong? 

 

The truth was no. The lie was yes. I settled for something in between. I dont 
know. 

 

He coughed another patch of blood into the handkerchief. When he bent his head 
to spit, I saw honey-crusted sores on his scalp. I brought you here because I 
am going to ask something of you. Im going to ask you to do something for me. 
But before I do, I want to tell you about Hassan. Do you understand? 

 

Yes, I murmured. 

 

I want to tell you about him. I want to tell you everything. You will listen? 

 

I nodded. 

 

Then Rahim Khan sipped some more tea. Rested his head against the wall and 
spoke. 

 

SIXTEEN 

 

There were a lot of reasons why I went to Hazarajat to find Hassan in 1986. The 
biggest one, Allah forgive me, was that I was lonely. By then, most of my 
friends and relatives had either been killed or had escaped the country to 
Pakistan or Iran. I barely knew anyone in Kabul anymore, the city where I had 
lived my entire life. Everybody had fled. I would take a walk in the Karteh 
Parwan section--where the melon vendors used to hang out in the old days, you 
remember that spot?--and I wouldnt recognize anyone there. No one to greet, no 
one to sit down with for chai, no one to share stories with, just Roussi 
soldiers patrolling the streets. So eventually, I stopped going out to the city. 
I would spend my days in your fathers house, up in the study, reading your 


mothers old books, listening to the news, watching the communist propaganda on 
television. Then I would pray natnaz, cook something, eat, read some more, pray 
again, and go to bed. I would rise in the morning, pray, do it all over again. 

 

And with my arthritis, it was getting harder for me to maintain the house. My 
knees and back were always aching--I would get up in the morning and it would 
take me at least an hour to shake the stiffness from my joints, especially in 
the wintertime. I did not want to let your fathers house go to rot; we had all 
had many good times in that house, so many memories, Amir jan. It was not right-
-your father had designed that house himself; it had meant so much to him, and 
besides, I had promised him I would care for it when he and you left for 
Pakistan. Now it was just me and the house and... I did my best. I tried to 
water the trees every few days, cut the lawn, tend to the flowers, fix things 
that needed fixing, but, even then, I was not a young man anymore. 

 

But even so, I might have been able to manage. At least for a while longer. But 
when news of your fathers death reached me... for the first time, I felt a 
terrible loneliness in that house. An unbearable emptiness. 

 

So one day, I fueled up the Buick and drove up to Hazarajat. I remembered that, 
after Ali dismissed himself from the house, your father told me he and Hassan 
had moved to a small village just outside Bamiyan. Ali had a cousin there as I 
recalled. I had no idea if Hassan would still be there, if anyone would even 
know of him or his whereabouts. After all, it had been ten years since Ali and 
Hassan had left your fathers house. Hassan would have been a grown man in 1986, 
twenty-two, twenty-three years old. If he was even alive, that is--the Shorawi, 
may they rot in hell for what they did to our watan, killed so many of our young 
men. I dont have to tell you that. 

 

But, with the grace of God, I found him there. It took very little searching--
all I had to do was ask a few questions in Bamiyan and people pointed me to his 
village. I do not even recall its name, or whether it even had one. But I 
remember it was a scorching summer day and I was driving up a rutted dirt road, 
nothing on either side but sunbaked bushes, gnarled, spiny tree trunks, and 
dried grass like pale straw. I passed a dead donkey rotting on the side of the 
road. And then I turned a corner and, right in the middle of that barren land, I 
saw a cluster of mud houses, beyond them nothing but broad sky and mountains 
like jagged teeth. 

 

The people in Bamiyan had told me I would find him easily--he lived in the only 
house in the village that had a walled garden. The mud wall, short and pocked 
with holes, enclosed the tiny house--which was really not much more than a 
glorified hut. Barefoot children were playing on the street, kicking a ragged 
tennis ball with a stick, and they stared when I pulled up and killed the 
engine. I knocked on the wooden door and stepped through into a yard that had 
very little in it save for a parched strawberry patch and a bare lemon tree. 
There was a tandoor in the corner in the shadow of an acacia tree and I saw a 
man squatting beside it. He was placing dough on a large wooden spatula and 
slapping it against the walls of the _tandoor_. He dropped the dough when he saw 
me. I had to make him stop kissing my hands. 

 

Let me look at you, I said. He stepped away. He was so tall now--I stood on my 
toes and still just came up to his chin. The Bamiyan sun had toughened his skin, 
and turned it several shades darker than I remembered, and he had lost a few of 
his front teeth. There were sparse strands of hair on his chin. Other than that, 
he had those same narrow green eyes, that scar on his upper lip, that round 


face, that affable smile. You would have recognized him, Amir jan. I am sure of 
it. 

 

We went inside. There was a young light-skinned Hazara woman, sewing a shawl in 
a corner of the room. She was visibly expecting. This is my wife, Rahim Khan, 
Hassan said proudly. Her name is Farzana jan. She was a shy woman, so 
courteous she spoke in a voice barely higher than a whisper and she would not 
raise her pretty hazel eyes to meet my gaze. But the way she was looking at 
Hassan, he might as well have been sitting on the throne at the _Arg_. 

 

When is the baby coming? I said after we all settled around the adobe room. 
There was nothing in the room, just a frayed rug, a few dishes, a pair of 
mattresses, and a lantern. 

 

_Inshallah_, this winter, Hassan said. I am praying for a boy to carry on my 
fathers name. 

 

Speaking of Ali, where is he? 

 

Hassan dropped his gaze. He told me that Ali and his cousin--who had owned the 
house--had been killed by a land mine two years before, just outside of Bamiyan. 
A land mine. Is there a more Afghan way of dying, Amir jan? And for some crazy 
reason, I became absolutely certain that it had been Alis right leg--his 
twisted polio leg--that had finally betrayed him and stepped on that land mine. 
I was deeply saddened to hear Ali had died. Your father and I grew up together, 
as you know, and Ali had been with him as long as I could remember. I remember 
when we were all little, the year Ali got polio and almost died. Your father 
would walk around the house all day crying. 

 

Farzana made us shorwa with beans, turnips, and potatoes. We washed our hands 
and dipped fresh _naan_ from the tandoor into the shorwa--it was the best meal I 
had had in months. It was then that I asked Hassan to move to Kabul with me. I 
told him about the house, how I could not care for it by myself anymore. I told 
him I would pay him well, that he and his _khanum_ would be comfortable. They 
looked to each other and did not say anything. Later, after we had washed our 
hands and Farzana had served us grapes, Hassan said the village was his home 
now; he and Farzana had made a life for themselves there. 

 

And Bamiyan is so close. We know people there. Forgive me, Rahim Khan. I pray 
you understand. 

 

Of course, I said. You have nothing to apologize for. I understand. 

 

It was midway through tea after shorwa that Hassan asked about you. I told him 
you were in America, but that I did not know much more. Hassan had so many 
questions about you. Had you married? Did you have children? How tall were you? 
Did you still fly kites and go to the cinema? Were you happy? He said he had 
befriended an old Farsi teacher in Bamiyan who had taught him to read and write. 
If he wrote you a letter, would I pass it on to you? And did I think you would 
write back? I told him what I knew of you from the few phone conversations I had 
had with your father, but mostly I did not know how to answer him. Then he asked 
me about your father. When I told him, Hassan buried his face in his hands and 
broke into tears. He wept like a child for the rest of that night. 

 

They insisted that I spend the night there. Farzana fixed a cot for me and left 
me a glass of well water in case I got thirsty. All night, I heard her 
whispering to Hassan, and heard him sobbing. 


 

In the morning, Hassan told me he and Farzana had decided to move to Kabul with 
me. 

 

I should not have come here, I said. You were right, Hassan jan. You have a 
zendagi, a life here. It was presumptuous of me to just show up and ask you to 
drop everything. It is me who needs to be forgiven. 

 

We dont have that much to drop, Rahim Khan, Hassan said. His eyes were still 
red and puffy. Well go with you. Well help you take care of the house. 

 

Are you absolutely sure? 

 

He nodded and dropped his head. Agha sahib was like my second father... God 
give him peace. 

 

They piled their things in the center of a few worn rags and tied the corners 
together. We loaded the bundle into the Buick. Hassan stood in the threshold of 
the house and held the Koran as we all kissed it and passed under it. Then we 
left for Kabul. I remember as I was pulling away, Hassan turned to take a last 
look at their home. 

 

When we got to Kabul, I discovered that Hassan had no intention of moving into 
the house. But all these rooms are empty, Hassan jan. No one is going to live 
in them, I said. 

 

But he would not. He said it was a matter of ihtiram, a matter of respect. He 
and Farzana moved their things into the hut in the backyard, where he was born. 
I pleaded for them to move into one of the guest bedrooms upstairs, but Hassan 
would hear nothing of it. What will Amir agha think? he said to me. What will 
he think when he comes back to Kabul after the war and finds that I have assumed 
his place in the house? Then, in mourning for your father, Hassan wore black 
for the next forty days. 

 

I did not want them to, but the two of them did all the cooking, all the 
cleaning. Hassan tended to the flowers in the garden, soaked the roots, picked 
off yellowing leaves, and planted rosebushes. He painted the walls. In the 
house, he swept rooms no one had slept in for years, and cleaned bathrooms no 
one had bathed in. Like he was preparing the house for someones return. Do you 
remember the wall behind the row of corn your father had planted, Amir jan? What 
did you and Hassan call it, the Wall of Ailing Corn? A rocket destroyed a 
whole section of that wall in the middle of the night early that fall. Hassan 
rebuilt the wall with his own hands, brick by brick, until it stood whole 
again. I do not know what I would have done if he had not been there. Then late 
that fall, Farzana gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. Hassan kissed the babys 
lifeless face, and we buried her in the backyard, near the sweetbrier bushes. We 
covered the little mound with leaves from the poplar trees. I said a prayer for 
her. Farzana stayed in the hut all day and wailed--it is a heartbreaking sound, 
Amir jan, the wailing of a mother. I pray to Allah you never hear it. 

 

Outside the walls of that house, there was a war raging. But the three of us, in 
your fathers house, we made our own little haven from it. My vision started 
going by the late 1980s, so I had Hassan read me your mothers books. We would 
sit in the foyer, by the stove, and Hassan would read me from _Masnawi_ or 
_Khayym_, as Farzana cooked in the kitchen. And every morning, Hassan placed a 
flower on the little mound by the sweetbrier bushes. 

 


In early 1990, Farzana became pregnant again. It was that same year, in the 
middle of the summer, that a woman covered in a sky blue burqa knocked on the 
front gates one morning. When I walked up to the gates, she was swaying on her 
feet, like she was too weak to even stand. I asked her what she wanted, but she 
would not answer. 

 

Who are you? I said. But she just collapsed right there in the driveway. I 
yelled for Hassan and he helped me carry her into the house, to the living room. 
We lay her on the sofa and took off her burqa. Beneath it, we found a toothless 
woman with stringy graying hair and sores on her arms. She looked like she had 
not eaten for days. But the worst of it by far was her face. Someone had taken a 
knife to it and... Amir jan, the slashes cut this way and that way. One of the 
cuts went from cheekbone to hairline and it had not spared her left eye on the 
way. It was grotesque. I patted her brow with a wet cloth and she opened her 
eyes. Where is Hassan? she whispered. 

 

Im right here, Hassan said. He took her hand and squeezed it. 

 

Her good eye rolled to him. I have walked long and far to see if you are as 
beautiful in the flesh as you are in my dreams. And you are. Even more. She 
pulled his hand to her scarred face. Smile for me. Please. 

 

Hassan did and the old woman wept. You smiled coming out of me, did anyone ever 
tell you? And I wouldnt even hold you. Allah forgive me, I wouldnt even hold 
you. 

 

None of us had seen Sanaubar since she had eloped with a band of singers and 
dancers in 1964, just after she had given birth to Hassan. You never saw her, 
Amir, but in her youth, she was a vision. She had a dimpled smile and a walk 
that drove men crazy. No one who passed her on the street, be it a man or a 
woman, could look at her only once. And now... 

 

Hassan dropped her hand and bolted out of the house. I went after him, but he 
was too fast. I saw him running up the hill where you two used to play, his feet 
kicking up plumes of dust. I let him go. I sat with Sanaubar all day as the sky 
went from bright blue to purple. Hassan still had not come back when night fell 
and moonlight bathed the clouds. Sanaubar cried that coming back had been a 
mistake, maybe even a worse one than leaving. But I made her stay. Hassan would 
return, I knew. 

 

He came back the next morning, looking tired and weary, like he had not slept 
all night. He took Sanaubars hand in both of his and told her she could cry if 
she wanted to but she neednt, she was home now, he said, home with her family. 
He touched the scars on her face, and ran his hand through her hair. 

 

Hassan and Farzana nursed her back to health. They fed her and washed her 
clothes. I gave her one of the guest rooms upstairs. Sometimes, I would look out 
the window into the yard and watch Hassan and his mother kneeling together, 
picking tomatoes or trimming a rosebush, talking. They were catching up on all 
the lost years, I suppose. As far as I know, he never asked where she had been 
or why she had left and she never told. I guess some stories do not need 
telling. 

 

It was Sanaubar who delivered Hassans son that winter of 1990. It had not 
started snowing yet, but the winter winds were blowing through the yards, 
bending the flowerbeds and rustling the leaves. I remember Sanaubar came out of 
the hut holding her grandson, had him wrapped in a wool blanket. She stood 


beaming under a dull gray sky tears streaming down her cheeks, the needle-cold 
wind blowing her hair, and clutching that baby in her arms like she never wanted 
to let go. Not this time. She handed him to Hassan and he handed him to me and I 
sang the prayer of Ayat-ul-kursi in that little boys ear. 

 

They named him Sohrab, after Hassans favorite hero from the _Shahnamah_, as you 
know, Amir jan. He was a beautiful little boy, sweet as sugar, and had the same 
temperament as his father. You should have seen Sanaubar with that baby, Amir 
jan. He became the center of her existence. She sewed clothes for him, built him 
toys from scraps of wood, rags, and dried grass. When he caught a fever, she 
stayed up all night, and fasted for three days. She burned isfand for him on a 
skillet to cast out nazar, the evil eye. By the time Sohrab was two, he was 
calling her Sasa. The two of them were inseparable. 

 

She lived to see him turn four, and then, one morning, she just did not wake up. 
She looked calm, at peace, like she did not mind dying now. We buried her in the 
cemetery on the hill, the one by the pomegranate tree, and I said a prayer for 
her too. The loss was hard on Hassan--it always hurts more to have and lose than 
to not have in the first place. But it was even harder on little Sohrab. He kept 
walking around the house, looking for Sasa, but you know how children are, they 
forget so quickly. 

 

By then--that would have been 1995--the Shorawi were defeated and long gone and 
Kabul belonged to Massoud, Rabbani, and the Mujahedin. The infighting between 
the factions was fierce and no one knew if they would live to see the end of the 
day. Our ears became accustomed to the whistle of falling shells, to the rumble 
of gunfire, our eyes familiar with the sight of men digging bodies out of piles 
of rubble. Kabul in those days, Amir jan, was as close as you could get to that 
proverbial hell on earth. Allah was kind to us, though. The Wazir Akbar Khan 
area was not attacked as much, so we did not have it as bad as some of the other 
neighborhoods. 

 

On those days when the rocket fire eased up a bit and the gunfighting was light, 
Hassan would take Sohrab to the zoo to see Marjan the lion, or to the cinema. 
Hassan taught him how to shoot the slingshot, and, later, by the time he was 
eight, Sohrab had become deadly with that thing: He could stand on the terrace 
and hit a pinecone propped on a pail halfway across the yard. Hassan taught him 
to read and write--his son was not going to grow up illiterate like he had. I 
grew very attached to that little boy--I had seen him take his first step, heard 
him utter his first word. I bought childrens books for Sohrab from the 
bookstore by Cinema Park--they have destroyed that too now--and Sohrab read them 
as quickly as I could get them to him. He reminded me of you, how you loved to 
read when you were little, Amir jan. Sometimes, I read to him at night, played 
riddles with him, taught him card tricks. I miss him terribly. 

 

In the wintertime, Hassan took his son kite running. There were not nearly as 
many kite tournaments as in the old days--no one felt safe outside for too long-
-but there were still a few scattered tournaments. Hassan would prop Sohrab on 
his shoulders and they would go trotting through the streets, running kites, 
climbing trees where kites had dropped. You remember, Amir Jan, what a good kite 
runner Hassan was? He was still just as good. At the end of winter, Hassan and 
Sohrab would hang the kites they had run all winter on the walls of the main 
hallway. They would put them up like paintings. 

 

I told you how we all celebrated in 1996 when the Taliban rolled in and put an 
end to the daily fighting. I remember coming home that night and finding Hassan 
in the kitchen, listening to the radio. He had a sober look in his eyes. I asked 


him what was wrong, and he just shook his head. God help the Hazaras now, Rahim 
Khan sahib, he said. 

 

The war is over, Hassan, I said. Theres going to be peace, _Inshallah_, and 
happiness and calm. No more rockets, no more killing, no more funerals! But he 
just turned off the radio and asked if he could get me anything before he went 
to bed. 

 

A few weeks later, the Taliban banned kite fighting. And two years later, in 
1998, they massacred the Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif. 

 

SEVENTEEN 

 

Rahim Khan slowly uncrossed his legs and leaned against the bare wall in the 
wary, deliberate way of a man whose every movement triggers spikes of pain. 
Outside, a donkey was braying and some one was shouting something in Urdu. The 
sun was beginning to set, glittering red through the cracks between the 
ramshackle buildings. 

 

It hit me again, the enormity of what I had done that winter and that following 
summer. The names rang in my head: Hassan, Sohrab, Ali, Farzana, and Sanaubar. 
Hearing Rahim Khan speak Alis name was like finding an old dusty music box that 
hadnt been opened in years; the melody began to play immediately: Who did you 
eat today, Babalu? Who did you eat, you slant-eyed Babalu? I tried to conjure 
Alis frozen face, to really see his tranquil eyes, but time can be a greedy 
thing--sometimes it steals all the details for itself. 

 

Is Hassan still in that house now? I asked. 

 

Rahim Khan raised the teacup to his parched lips and took a sip. He then fished 
an envelope from the breast pocket of his vest and handed it to me. For you. 

 

I tore the sealed envelope. Inside, I found a Polaroid photograph and a folded 
letter. I stared at the photograph for a full minute. 

 

A tall man dressed in a white turban and a green-striped chapan stood with a 
little boy in front of a set of wrought-iron gates. Sunlight slanted in from the 
left, casting a shadow on half of his rotund face. He was squinting and smiling 
at the camera, showing a pair of missing front teeth. Even in this blurry 
Polaroid, the man in the chapan exuded a sense of self-assuredness, of ease. It 
was in the way he stood, his feet slightly apart, his arms comfortably crossed 
on his chest, his head titled a little toward the sun. Mostly, it was in the way 
he smiled. Looking at the photo, one might have concluded that this was a man 
who thought the world had been good to him. Rahim Khan was right: I would have 
recognized him if I had bumped into him on the street. The little boy stood bare 
foot, one arm wrapped around the mans thigh, his shaved head resting against 
his fathers hip. He too was grinning and squinting. 

 

I unfolded the letter. It was written in Farsi. No dots were omitted, no crosses 
forgotten, no words blurred together--the handwriting was almost childlike in 
its neatness. I began to read: 

 

In the name of Allah the most beneficent, the most merciful, Amir agha, with my 
deepest respects, 

 

Farzana jan, Sohrab, and I pray that this latest letter finds you in good health 
and in the light of Allahs good graces. Please offer my warmest thanks to Rahim 


Khan sahib for carrying it to you. I am hopeful that one day I will hold one of 
your letters in my hands and read of your life in America. Perhaps a photograph 
of you will even grace our eyes. I have told much about you to Farzana jan and 
Sohrab, about us growing up together and playing games and running in the 
streets. They laugh at the stories of all the mischief you and I used to cause! 

 

Amir agha, 

 

Alas the Afghanistan of our youth is long dead. Kindness is gone from the land 
and you cannot escape the killings. Always the killings. In Kabul, fear is 
everywhere, in the streets, in the stadium, in the markets, it is a part of our 
lives here, Amir agha. The savages who rule our watan dont care about human 
decency. The other day, I accompanied Farzana Jan to the bazaar to buy some 
potatoes and _naan_. She asked the vendor how much the potatoes cost, but he did 
not hear her, I think he had a deaf ear. So she asked louder and suddenly a 
young Talib ran over and hit her on the thighs with his wooden stick. He struck 
her so hard she fell down. He was screaming at her and cursing and saying the 
Ministry of Vice and Virtue does not allow women to speak loudly. She had a 
large purple bruise on her leg for days but what could I do except stand and 
watch my wife get beaten? If I fought, that dog would have surely put a bullet 
in me, and gladly! Then what would happen to my Sohrab? The streets are full 
enough already of hungry orphans and every day I thank Allah that I am alive, 
not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an 
orphan. 

 

I wish you could see Sohrab. He is a good boy. Rahim Khan sahib and I have 
taught him to read and write so he does not grow up stupid like his father. And 
can he shoot with that slingshot! I take Sohrab around Kabul sometimes and buy 
him candy. There is still a monkey man in Shar-e Nau and if we run into him, I 
pay him to make his monkey dance for Sohrab. You should see how he laughs! The 
two of us often walk up to the cemetery on the hill. Do you remember how we used 
to sit under the pomegranate tree there and read from the _Shahnamah_? The 
droughts have dried the hill and the tree hasnt borne fruit in years, but 
Sohrab and I still sit under its shade and I read to him from the _Shahnamah_. 
It is not necessary to tell you that his favorite part is the one with his 
namesake, Rostam and Sohrab. Soon he will be able to read from the book himself. 
I am a very proud and very lucky father. 

 

 

Amir agha, 

 

Rahim Khan sahib is quite ill. He coughs all day and I see blood on his sleeve 
when he wipes his mouth. He has lost much weight and I wish he would eat a 
little of the shorwa and rice that Farzana Jan cooks for him. But he only takes 
a bite or two and even that I think is out of courtesy to Farzana jan. I am so 
worried about this dear man I pray for him every day. He is leaving for Pakistan 
in a few days to consult some doctors there and, _Inshallah_, he will return 
with good news. But in my heart I fear for him. Farzana jan and I have told 
little Sohrab that Rahim Khan sahib is going to be well. What can we do? He is 
only ten and he adores Rahim Khan sahib. They have grown so close to each other. 
Rahim Khan sahib used to take him to the bazaar for balloons and biscuits but he 
is too weak for that now. 

 

I have been dreaming a lot lately, Amir agha. Some of them are nightmares, like 
hanged corpses rotting in soccer fields with bloodred grass. I wake up from 
those short of breath and sweaty. Mostly, though, I dream of good things, and 
praise Allah for that. I dream that Rahim Khan sahib will be well. I dream that 


my son will grow up to be a good person, a free person, and an important person. 
I dream that lawla flowers will bloom in the streets of Kabul again and rubab 
music will play in the samovar houses and kites will fly in the skies. And I 
dream that someday you will return to Kabul to revisit the land of our 
childhood. If you do, you will find an old faithful friend waiting for you. 

 

May Allah be with you always. 

-Hassan 

 

 

I read the letter twice. I folded the note and looked at the photograph for 
another minute. I pocketed both. How is he? I asked. 

 

That letter was written six months ago, a few days before I left for Peshawar, 
Rahim Khan said. I took the Polaroid the day before I left. A month after I 
arrived in Peshawar, I received a telephone call from one of my neighbors in 
Kabul. He told me this story: Soon after I took my leave, a rumor spread that a 
Hazara family was living alone in the big house in Wazir Akbar Khan, or so the 
Taliban claim. A pair of Talib officials came to investigate and interrogated 
Hassan. They accused him of lying when Hassan told them he was living with me 
even though many of the neighbors, including the one who called me, supported 
Hassans story. The Talibs said he was a liar and a thief like all Hazaras and 
ordered him to get his family out of the house by sundown. Hassan protested. But 
my neighbor said the Talibs were looking at the big house like--how did he say 
it?--yes, like wolves looking at a flock of sheep. They told Hassan they would 
be moving in to supposedly keep it safe until I return. Hassan protested again. 
So they took him to the street-- 

 

No, I breathed. 

 

--and order him to kneel-- 

 

No. God, no. 

 

--and shot him in the back of the head. 

 

 

--Farzana came screaming and attacked them-- 

 

No. 

 

--shot her too. Self-defense, they claimed later-- 

 

But all I could manage was to whisper No. No. No over and over again. 

 

 

I KEPT THINKING OF THAT DAY in 1974, in the hospital room, Just after Hassans 
harelip surgery. Baba, Rahim Khan, Ali, and I had huddled around Hassans bed, 
watched him examine his new lip in a handheld mirror. Now everyone in that room 
was either dead or dying. Except for me. 

 

Then I saw something else: a man dressed in a herringbone vest pressing the 
muzzle of his Kalashnikov to the back of Hassans head. The blast echoes through 
the street of my fathers house. Hassan slumps to the asphalt, his life of 
unrequited loyalty drifting from him like the windblown kites he used to chase. 

 


The Taliban moved into the house, Rahim Khan said. The pretext was that they 
had evicted a trespasser. Hassans and Farzanas murders were dismissed as a 
case of self-defense. No one said a word about it. Most of it was fear of the 
Taliban, I think. But no one was going to risk anything for a pair of Hazara 
servants. 

 

What did they do with Sohrab? I asked. I felt tired, drained. A coughing fit 
gripped Rahim Khan and went on for a long time. When he finally looked up, his 
face was flushed and his eyes bloodshot. I heard hes in an orphanage somewhere 
in Karteh Seh. Amir jan-- then he was coughing again. When he stopped, he 
looked older than a few moments before, like he was aging with each coughing 
fit. Amir jan, I summoned you here because I wanted to see you before I die, 
but thats not all. 

 

I said nothing. I think I already knew what he was going to say. 

 

I want you to go to KabuL I want you to bring Sohrab here, he said. 

 

I struggled to find the right words. Id barely had time to deal with the fact 
that Hassan was dead. 

 

Please hear me. I know an American pair here in Peshawar, a husband and wife 
named Thomas and Betty Caldwell. They are Christians and they run a small 
charity organization that they manage with private donations. Mostly they house 
and feed Afghan children who have lost their parents. I have seen the place. 
Its clean and safe, the children are well cared for, and Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell 
are kind people. They have already told me that Sohrab would be welcome to their 
home and-- 

 

Rahim Khan, you cant be serious. 

 

Children are fragile, Amir Jan. Kabul is already full of broken children and I 
dont want Sohrab to become another. 

 

Rahim Khan, I dont want to go to Kabul. I cant! I said. 

 

Sohrab is a gifted little boy. We can give him a new life here, new hope, with 
people who would love him. Thomas agha is a 

good man and Betty khanum is so kind, you should see how she treats those 
orphans. 

 

Why me? Why cant you pay someone here to go? Ill pay for it if its a matter 
of money. 

 

It isnt about money, Amir! Rahim Khan roared. Im a dying man and I will not 
be insulted! It has never been about money with me, you know that. And why you? 
I think we both know why it has to be you, dont we? 

 

I didnt want to understand that comment, but I did. I understood it all too 
well. I have a wife in America, a home, a career, and a family. Kabul is a 
dangerous place, you know that, and youd have me risk everything for... I 
stopped. 

 

You know, Rahim Khan said, one time, when you werent around, your father and 
I were talking. And you know how he always worried about you in those days. I 
remember he said to me, Rahim, a boy who wont stand up for himself becomes a 
man who cant stand up to anything. I wonder, is that what youve become? 


 

I dropped my eyes. 

 

What Im asking from you is to grant an old man his dying wish, he said 
gravely. 

 

He had gambled whh that comment. Played his best card. Or so I thought then. His 
words hung in limbo between us, but at least hed known what to say. I was still 
searching for the right words, and I was the writer in the room. Finally, I 
settled for this: 

 

Maybe Baba was right. 

 

Im sorry you think that, Amir. 

 

I couldnt look at him. And you dont? 

 

If I did, I would not have asked you to come here. 

 

I toyed with my wedding ring. Youve always thought too highly of me, Rahim 
Khan. 

 

And youve always been far too hard on yourself. He hesitated. But theres 
something else. Something you dont know. 

 

Please, Rahim Khan-- 

 

Sanaubar wasnt Alis first wife. 

 

Now I looked up. 

 

He was married once before, to a Hazara woman from the Jaghori area. This was 
long before you were born. They were married for three years. 

 

What does this have to do with anything? 

 

She left him childless after three years and married a man in Khost. She bore 
him three daughters. Thats what I am trying to tell you. 

 

I began to see where he was going. But I didnt want to hear the rest of it. I 
had a good life in California, pretty Victorian home with a peaked roof, a good 
marriage, a promising writing career, in-laws who loved me. I didnt need any of 
this shit. 

 

Ali was sterile, Rahim Khan said. 

 

No he wasnt. He and Sanaubar had Hassan, didnt they? They had Hassan-- 

 

No they didnt, Rahim Khan said. 

 

Yes they did! 

 

No they didnt, Amir. 

 

Then who-- 

 

I think you know who. 


 

I felt like a man sliding down a steep cliff, clutching at shrubs and tangles of 
brambles and coming up empty-handed. The room was swooping up and down, swaying 
side to side. Did Hassan know? I said through lips that didnt feel like my 
own. Rahim Khan closed his eyes. Shook his head. 

 

You bastards, I muttered. Stood up. You goddamn bastards! I screamed. All 
of you, you bunch of lying goddamn bastards! 

 

Please sit down, Rahim Khan said. 

 

How could you hide this from me? From him? I bellowed. Please think, Amir 
Jan. It was a shameful situation. People would talk. All that a man had back 
then, all that he was, was his honor, his name, and if people talked... We 
couldnt tell anyone, surely you can see that. He reached for me, but I shed 
his hand. Headed for the door. 

 

Amir jan, please dont leave. 

 

I opened the door and turned to him. Why? What can you possibly say to me? Im 
thirty-eight years old and Ive Just found out my whole life is one big fucking 
lie! What can you possibly say to make things better? Nothing. Not a goddamn 
thing! 

 

And with that, I stormed out of the apartment. 

 

EIGHTEEN 

 

The sun had almost set and left the sky swathed in smothers of purple and red. I 
walked down the busy, narrow street that led away from Rahim Khans building. 
The street was a noisy lane in a maze of alleyways choked with pedestrians, 
bicycles, and rickshaws. Billboards hung at its corners, advertising Coca-Cola 
and cigarettes; Hollywood movie posters displayed sultry actresses dancing with 
handsome, brown-skinned men in fields of marigolds. 

 

I walked into a smoky little samovar house and ordered a cup of tea. I tilted 
back on the folding chairs rear legs and rubbed my face. That feeling of 
sliding toward a fall was fading. But in its stead, I felt like a man who 
awakens in his own house and finds all the furniture rearranged, so that every 
familiar nook and cranny looks foreign now. Disoriented, he has to reevaluate 
his surroundings, reorient himself. 

 

How could I have been so blind? The signs had been there for me to see all 
along; they came flying back at me now: Baba hiring Dr. Kumar to fix Hassans 
harelip. Baba never missing Hassans birthday. I remembered the day we were 
planting tulips, when I had asked Baba if hed ever consider getting new 
servants. Hassans not going anywhere, hed barked. Hes staying right here with 
us, where he belongs. This is his home and were his family. He had wept, wept, 
when Ali announced he and Hassan were leaving us. 

 

The waiter placed a teacup on the table before me. Where the tables legs 
crossed like an X, there was a ring of brass balls, each walnut-sized. One of 
the balls had come unscrewed. I stooped and tightened it. I wished I could fix 
my own life as easily. I took a gulp of the blackest tea Id had in years and 
tried to think of Soraya, of the general and Khala Jamila, of the novel that 
needed finishing. I tried to watch the traffic bolting by on the street, the 
people milling in and out of the little sweetshops. Tried to listen to the 


Qawali music playing on the transistor radio at the next table. Anything. But I 
kept seeing Baba on the night of my graduation, sitting in the Ford hed just 
given me, smelling of beer and saying, I wish Hassan had been with us today. 

 

How could he have lied to me all those years? To Hassan? He had sat me on his 
lap when I was little, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, There is only 
one sin. And that is theft... When you tell a lie, you steal someones right to 
the truth. Hadnt he said those words to me? And now, fifteen years after Id 
buried him, I was learning that Baba had been a thief. And a thief of the worst 
kind, because the things hed stolen had been sacred: from me the right to know 
I had a brother, from Hassan his identity, and from Ali his honor. His nang. His 
namoos. 

 

The questions kept coming at me: How had Baba brought himself to look Ali in the 
eye? How had Ali lived in that house, clay in and day out, knowing he had been 
dishonored by his master in the single worst way an Afghan man can be 
dishonored? 

 

And how was I going to reconcile this new image of Baba with the one that had 
been imprinted on my mind for so long, that of him in his old brown suit, 
hobbling up the Taheris driveway to ask for Sorayas hand? 

 

Here is another clich my creative writing teacher would have scoffed at; like 
father, like son. But it was true, wasnt it? As it turned out, Baba and I were 
more alike than Id ever known. We had both betrayed the people who would have 
given their lives for us. And with that came this realization: that Rahim Khan 
had summoned me here to atone not just for my sins but for Babas too. 

 

Rahim Khan said Id always been too hard on myself. But I wondered. True, I 
hadnt made Ali step on the land mine, and I hadnt brought the Taliban to the 
house to shoot Hassan. But I had driven Hassan and Ali out of the house. Was it 
too far-fetched to imagine that things might have turned out differently if I 
hadnt? Maybe Baba would have brought them along to America. Maybe Hassan would 
have had a home of his own now, a job, a family, a life in a country where no 
one cared that he was a Hazara, where most people didnt even know what a Hazara 
was. Maybe not. But maybe so. 

 

I cant go to Kabul, I had said to Rahim Khan. I have a wife in America, a home, 
a career, and a family. But how could I pack up and go back home when my actions 
may have cost Hassan a chance at those very same things? 

 

I wished Rahim Khan hadnt called me. I wished he had let me live on in my 
oblivion. But he had called me. And what Rahim Khan revealed to me changed 
things. Made me see how my entire life, long before the winter of 1975, dating 
back to when that singing Hazara woman was still nursing me, had been a cycle of 
lies, betrayals, and secrets. 

 

There is a way to be good again, hed said. 

 

A way to end the cycle. 

 

With a little boy. An orphan. Hassans son. Somewhere in Kabul. 

 

 

ON THE RICKSHAW RIDE back to Rahim Khans apartment, I remembered Baba saying 
that my problem was that someone had always done my fighting for me. I was 
thirty-eight flow. My hair was receding and streaked with gray, and lately Id 


traced little crows-feet etched around the corners of my eyes. I was older now, 
but maybe not yet too old to start doing my own fighting. Baba had lied about a 
lot of things as it turned out but he hadnt lied about that. 

 

I looked at the round face in the Polaroid again, the way the sun fell on it. My 
brothers face. Hassan had loved me once, loved me in a way that no one ever had 
or ever would again. He was gone now, but a little part of him lived on. It was 
in Kabul. 

 

Waiting. 

 

 

I FOUND RAHIM KHAN praying _namaz_ in a corner of the room. He was just a dark 
silhouette bowing eastward against a bloodred sky. I waited for him to finish. 

 

Then I told him I was going to Kabul. Told him to call the Caldwells in the 
morning. 

 

Ill pray for you, Amir jan, he said. 

 

NINETEEN 

 

Again, the car sickness. By the time we drove past the bulletriddled sign that 
read THE KHYBER PASS WELCOMES YOU, my mouth had begun to water. Something inside 
my stomach churned and twisted. Farid, my driver, threw me a cold glance. There 
was no empathy in his eyes. 

 

Can we roll down the window? I asked. 

 

He lit a cigarette and tucked it between the remaining two fingers of his left 
hand, the one resting on the steering wheel. Keeping his black eyes on the road, 
he stooped forward, picked up the screwdriver lying between his feet, and handed 
it to me. I stuck it in the small hole in the door where the handle belonged and 
turned it to roll down my window. 

 

Farid gave me another dismissive look, this one with a hint of barely suppressed 
animosity, and went back to smoking his cigarette. He hadnt said more than a 
dozen words since wed departed from Jamrud Fort. 

 

Tashakor, I muttered. I leaned my head out of the window and let the cold 
midafternoon air rush past my face. The drive through the tribal lands of the 
Khyber Pass, winding between cliffs of shale and limestone, was just as I 
remembered it--Baba and I had driven through the broken terrain back in 1974. 
The arid, imposing mountains sat along deep gorges and soared to jagged peaks. 
Old fortresses, adobe-walled and crumbling, topped the crags. I tried to keep my 
eyes glued to the snowcapped Hindu Kush on the north side, but each time my 
stomach settled even a bit, the truck skidded around yet another turn, rousing a 
fresh wave of nausea. 

 

Try a lemon. 

 

What? 

 

Lemon. Good for the sickness, Farid said. I always bring one for this drive. 

 


Nay, thank you, I said. The mere thought of adding acidity to my stomach 
stirred more nausea. Farid snickered. Its not fancy like American medicine, I 
know, just an old remedy my mother taught me. 

 

I regretted blowing my chance to warm up to him. In that case, maybe you should 
give me some. 

 

He grabbed a paper bag from the backseat and plucked a half lemon out of it. I 
bit down on it, waited a few minutes. You were right. I feel better, I lied. 
As an Afghan, I knew it was better to be miserable than rude. I forced a weak 
smile. 

 

Old watani trick, no need for fancy medicine, he said. His tone bordered on 
the surly. He flicked the ash off his cigarette and gave himself a self-
satisfied look in the rearview mirror. He was a Tajik, a lanky, dark man with a 
weather-beaten face, narrow shoulders, and a long neck punctuated by a 
protruding Adams apple that only peeked from behind his beard when he turned 
his head. He was dressed much as I was, though I suppose it was really the other 
way around: a rough-woven wool blanket wrapped over a gray pirhan-tumban and a 
vest. On his head, he wore a brown pakol, tilted slightly to one side, like the 
Tajik hero Ahmad Shah Massoud--referred to by Tajiks as the Lion of Panjsher. 

 

It was Rahim Khan who had introduced me to Farid in Peshawar. He told me Farid 
was twenty-nine, though he had the wary, lined face of a man twenty years older. 
He was born in Mazar-i-Sharif and lived there until his father moved the family 
to Jalalabad when Farid was ten. At fourteen, he and his father had joined the 
jihad against the Shorawi. They had fought in the Panjsher Valley for two years 
until helicopter gunfire had torn the older man to pieces. Farid had two wives 
and five children. He used to have seven, Rahim Khan said with a rueful look, 
but hed lost his two youngest girls a few years earlier in a land mine blast 
just outside Jalalabad, the same explosion that had severed toes from his feet 
and three fingers from his left hand. After that, he had moved his wives and 
children to Peshawar. 

 

Checkpoint, Farid grumbled. I slumped a little in my seat, arms folded across 
my chest, forgetting for a moment about the nausea. But I neednt have worried. 
Two Pakistani militia approached our dilapidated Land Cruiser, took a cursory 
glance inside, and waved us on. 

 

Farid was first on- the list of preparations Rahim Khan and I made, a list that 
included exchanging dollars for Kaldar and Afghani bills, my garment and pakol--
ironically, Id never worn either when Id actually lived in Afghanistan--the 
Polaroid of Hassan and Sohrab, and, finally, perhaps the most important item: an 
artificial beard, black and chest length, Sharia friendly--or at least the 
Taliban version of Sharia. Rahim Khan knew of a fellow in Peshawar who 
specialized in weaving them, sometimes for Western journalists who covered the 
war. 

 

Rahim Khan had wanted me to stay with him a few more days, to plan more 
thoroughly. But I knew I had to leave as soon as possible. I was afraid Id 
change my mind. I was afraid Id deliberate, ruminate, agonize, rationalize, and 
talk myself into not going. I was afraid the appeal of my life in America would 
draw me back, that I would wade back into that great, big river and let myself 
forget, let the things I had learned these last few days sink to the bottom. I 
was afraid that Id let the waters carry me away from what I had to do. From 
Hassan. From the past that had come calling. And from this one last chance at 
redemption. So I left before there was any possibility of that happening. As for 


Soraya, telling her I was going back to Afghanistan wasnt an option. If I had, 
she would have booked herself on the next flight to Pakistan. 

 

We had crossed the border and the signs of poverty were every where. On either 
side of the road, I saw chains of little villages sprouting here and there, like 
discarded toys among the rocks, broken mud houses and huts consisting of little 
more than four wooden poles and a tattered cloth as a roof. I saw children 
dressed in rags chasing a soccer ball outside the huts. A few miles later, I 
spotted a cluster of men sitting on their haunches, like a row of crows, on the 
carcass of an old burned-out Soviet tank, the wind fluttering the edges of the 
blankets thrown around them. Behind them, a woman in a brown burqa carried a 
large clay pot on her shoulder, down a rutted path toward a string of mud 
houses. 

 

Strange, I said. 

 

What? 

 

I feel like a tourist in my own country, I said, taking in a goatherd leading 
a half-dozen emaciated goats along the side of the road. 

 

Farid snickered. Tossed his cigarette. You still think of this place as your 
country? 

 

I think a part of me always will, I said, more defensively than I had 
intended. 

 

After twenty years of living in America, he said, swerving the truck to avoid 
a pothole the size of a beach ball. 

 

I nodded. I grew up in Afghanistan. Farid snickered again. 

 

Why do you do that? 

 

Never mind, he murmured. 

 

No, I want to know. Why do you do that? 

 

In his rearview mirror, I saw something flash in his eyes. You want to know? 
he sneered. Let me imagine, Agha sahib. You probably lived in a big two- or 
three-story house with a nice back yard that your gardener filled with flowers 
and fruit trees. All gated, of course. Your father drove an American car. You 
had servants, probably Hazaras. Your parents hired workers to decorate the house 
for the fancy mehmanis they threw, so their friends would come over to drink and 
boast about their travels to Europe or America. And I would bet my first sons 
eyes that this is the first time youve ever worn a pakol. He grinned at me, 
revealing a mouthful of prematurely rotting teeth. Am I close? 

 

Why are you saying these things? I said. 

 

Because you wanted to know, he spat. He pointed to an old man dressed in 
ragged clothes trudging down a dirt path, a large burlap pack filled with scrub 
grass tied to his back. Thats the real Afghanistan, Agha sahib. Thats the 
Afghanistan I know. You? Youve always been a tourist here, you just didnt know 
it. 

 


Rahim Khan had warned me not to expect a warm welcome in Afghanistan from those 
who had stayed behind and fought the wars. Im sorry about your father, I 
said. Im sorry about your daughters, and Im sorry about your hand. 

 

That means nothing to me, he said. He shook his head. Why are you coming back 
here anyway? Sell off your Babas land? Pocket the money and run back to your 
mother in America? 

 

My mother died giving birth to me, I said. 

 

He sighed and lit another cigarette. Said nothing. 

 

Pull over. 

 

What? 

 

Pull over, goddamn it! I said. Im going to be sick. I tumbled out of the 
truck as it was coming to a rest on the gravel alongside the road. 

 

 

BY LATE AFTERNOON, the terrain had changed from one of sun-beaten peaks and 
barren cliffs to a greener, more rural land scape. The main pass had descended 
from Landi Kotal through Shinwari territory to Landi Khana. Wed entered 
Afghanistan at Torkham. Pine trees flanked the road, fewer than I remembered and 
many of them bare, but it was good to see trees again after the arduous drive 
through the Khyber Pass. We were getting closer to Jalalabad, where Farid had a 
brother who would take us in for the night. 

 

The sun hadnt quite set when we drove into Jalalabad, capital of the state of 
Nangarhar, a city once renowned for its fruit and warm climate. Farid drove past 
the buildings and stone houses of the citys central district. There werent as 
many palm trees there as I remembered, and some of the homes had been reduced to 
roofless walls and piles of twisted clay. 

 

Farid turned onto a narrow unpaved road and parked the Land Cruiser along a 
dried-up gutter. I slid out of the truck, stretched, and took a deep breath. In 
the old days, the winds swept through the irrigated plains around Jalalabad 
where farmers grew sugarcane, and impregnated the citys air with a sweet scent. 
I closed my eyes and searched for the sweetness. I didnt find it. 

 

Lets go, Farid said impatiently. We walked up the dirt road past a few 
leafless poplars along a row of broken mud walls. Farid led me to a dilapidated 
one-story house and knocked on the woodplank door. 

 

A young woman with ocean-green eyes and a white scarf draped around her face 
peeked out. She saw me first, flinched, spotted Farid and her eyes lit up. 
Salaam alaykum, Kaka Farid! 

 

Salaam, Maryam jan, Farid replied and gave her something hed denied me all 
day: a warm smile. He planted a kiss on the top of her head. The young woman 
stepped out of the way, eyeing me a little apprehensively as I followed Farid 
into the small house. 

 

The adobe ceiling was low, the dirt walls entirely bare, and the only light came 
from a pair of lanterns set in a corner. We took off our shoes and stepped on 
the straw mat that covered the floor. Along one of the walls sat three young 
boys, cross-legged, on a mattress covered with a blanket with shredded borders. 


A tall bearded man with broad shoulders stood up to greet us. Farid and he 
hugged and kissed on the cheek. Farid introduced him to me as Wahid, his older 
brother. Hes from America, he said to Wahid, flicking his thumb toward me. He 
left us alone and went to greet the boys. 

 

Wahid sat with me against the wall across from the boys, who had ambushed Farid 
and climbed his shoulders. Despite my protests, Wahid ordered one of the boys to 
fetch another blanket so Id be more comfortable on the floor, and asked Maryam 
to bring me some tea. He asked about the ride from Peshawar, the drive over the 
Khyber Pass. 

 

I hope you didnt come across any dozds, he said. The Khyber Pass was as 
famous for its terrain as for the bandits who used that terrain to rob 
travelers. Before I could answer, he winked and said in a loud voice, Of course 
no dozd would waste his time on a car as ugly as my brothers. 

 

Farid wrestled the smallest of the three boys to the floor and tickled him on 
the ribs with his good hand. The kid giggled and kicked. At least I have a 
car, Farid panted. How is your donkey these days? 

 

My donkey is a better ride than your car. 

 

Khar khara mishnassah, Farid shot back. Takes a donkey to know a donkey. They 
all laughed and I joined in. I heard female voices from the adjoining room. I 
could see half of the room from where I sat. Maryam and an older woman wearing a 
brown hijab--presumably her mother--were speaking in low voices and pouring tea 
from a kettle into a pot. 

 

So what do you do in America, Amir agha? Wahid asked. 

 

Im a writer, I said. I thought I heard Farid chuckle at that. 

 

A writer? Wahid said, clearly impressed. Do you write about Afghanistan? 

 

Well, I have. But not currently, I said. My last novel, A Season for Ashes, 
had been about a university professor who joins a clan of gypsies after he finds 
his wife in bed with one of his stu dents. It wasnt a bad book. Some reviewers 
had called it a good book, and one had even used the word riveting. But 
suddenly I was embarrassed by it. I hoped Wahid wouldnt ask what it was about. 

 

Maybe you should write about Afghanistan again, Wahid said. Tell the rest of 
the world what the Taliban are doing to our country. 

 

Well, Im not... Im not quite that kind of writer. 

 

Oh, Wahid said, nodding and blushing a bit. "You know best, of course. Its 
not for me to suggest... 

 

Just then, Maryam and the other woman came into the room with a pair of cups and 
a teapot on a small platter. I stood up in respect, pressed my hand to my chest, 
and bowed my head. Salaam alaykum, I said. 

 

The woman, who had now wrapped her hijab to conceal her lower face, bowed her 
head too. Sataam, she replied in a barely audible voice. We never made eye 
contact. She poured the tea while I stood. 

 


The woman placed the steaming cup of tea before me and exited the room, her bare 
feet making no sound at all as she disappeared. I sat down and sipped the strong 
black tea. Wahid finally broke the uneasy silence that followed. 

 

So what brings you back to Afghanistan? 

 

What brings them all back to Afghanistan, dear brother? Farid said, speaking 
to Wahid but fixing me with a contemptuous gaze. 

 

Bas! Wahid snapped. 

 

Its always the same thing, Farid said. Sell this land, sell that house, 
collect the money, and run away like a mouse. Go back to America, spend the 
money on a family vacation to Mexico. 

 

Farid! Wahid roared. His children, and even Farid, flinched. Have you 
forgotten your-manners? This is my house! Amir agha is my guest tonight and I 
will not allow you to dishonor me like this! 

 

Farid opened his mouth, almost said something, reconsidered and said nothing. He 
slumped against the wall, muttered some thing under his breath, and crossed his 
mutilated foot over the good one. His accusing eyes never left me. 

 

Forgive us, Amir agha, Wahid said. Since childhood, my brothers mouth has 
been two steps ahead of his head. 

 

Its my fault, really, I said, trying to smile under Farids intense gaze. I 
am not offended. I should have explained to him my business here in Afghanistan. 
I am not here to sell property. Im going to Kabul to find a boy. 

 

A boy, Wahid repeated. 

 

Yes. I fished the Polaroid from the pocket of my shirt. Seeing Hassans 
picture again tore the fresh scab off his death. I had to turn my eyes away from 
it. I handed it to Wahid. He studied the photo. Looked from me to the photo and 
back again. This boy? 

 

I nodded. 

 

This Hazara boy. 

 

Yes. 

 

What does he mean to you? 

 

His father meant a lot to me. He is the man in the photo. Hes dead now. 

 

Wahid blinked. He was a friend of yours? 

 

My instinct was to say yes, as if, on some deep level, I too wanted to protect 
Babas secret. But there had been enough lies already. He was my half-brother. 
I swallowed. Added, My illegitimate half brother. I turned the teacup. Toyed 
with the handle. 

 

I didnt mean to pry. 

 

Youre not prying, I said. 


 

What will you do with him? 

 

Take him back to Peshawar. There are people there who will take care of him. 

 

Wahid handed the photo back and rested his thick hand on my shoulder. You are 
an honorable man, Amir agha. A true Afghan. 

 

I cringed inside. 

 

I am proud to have you in our home tonight, Wahid said. I thanked him and 
chanced a glance over to Farid. He was looking down now, playing with the frayed 
edges of the straw mat. 

 

 

A SHORT WHILE LATER, Maryam and her mother brought two steaming bowls of 
vegetable shorwa and two loaves of bread. Im sorry we cant offer you meat, 
Wahid said. Only the Taliban can afford meat now. 

 

This looks wonderful, I said. It did too. I offered some to him, to the kids, 
but Wahid said the family had eaten before we arrived. Farid and I rolled up our 
sleeves, dipped our bread in the shorwa, and ate with our hands. 

 

As I ate, I noticed Wahids boys, all three thin with dirtcaked faces and short-
cropped brown hair under their skullcaps, stealing furtive glances at my digital 
wristwatch. The youngest whispered something in his brothers ear. The brother 
nodded, didnt take his eyes off my watch. The oldest of the boys--I guessed his 
age at about twelve--rocked back and forth, his gaze glued to my wrist. After 
dinner, after Id washed my hands with the water Maryam poured from a clay pot, 
I asked for Wahids permission to give his boys a hadia, a gift. He said no, 
but, when I insisted, he reluctantly agreed. I unsnapped the wristwatch and gave 
it to the youngest of the three boys. He muttered a sheepish Tashakor. 

 

It tells you the time in any city in the world, I told him. The boys nodded 
politely, passing the watch between them, taking 

turns trying it on. But they lost interest and, soon, the watch sat abandoned on 
the straw mat. 

 

 

You COULD HAVE TOLD ME, Farid saidlater. The two ofus were lying next to each 
other on the straw mats Wahids wife had spread for us. 

 

Told you what? 

 

Why youve come to Afghanistan. His voice had lost the rough edge Id heard in 
it since the moment I had met him. 

 

You didnt ask, I said. 

 

You should have told me. 

 

You didnt ask. 

 

He rolled to face me. Curled his arm under his head. Maybe I will help you find 
this boy. 

 

Thank you, Farid, I said. 


 

It was wrong of me to assume. 

 

I sighed. Dont worry. You were more right than you know. 

 

 

HIS HANDS ARE TIED BEHIND HIM with roughly woven rope cutting through the flesh 
of his wrists. He is blindfolded with black cloth. He is kneeling on the street, 
on the edge of a gutter filled with still water, his head drooping between his 
shoulders. His knees roll on the hard ground and bleed through his pants as he 
rocks in prayer. It is late afternoon and his long shadow sways back and forth 
on the gravel. He is muttering something under his breath. I step closer. A 
thousand times over, he mutters. For you a thousand times over. Back and forth 
he rocks. He lifts his face. I see a faint scar above his upper lip. 

 

We are not alone. 

 

I see the barrel first. Then the man standing behind him. He is tall, dressed in 
a herringbone vest and a black turban. He looks down at the blindfolded man 
before him with eyes that show nothing but a vast, cavernous emptiness. He takes 
a step back and raises the barrel. Places it on the back of the kneeling mans 
head. For a moment, fading sunlight catches in the metal and twinkles. 

 

The rifle roars with a deafening crack. 

 

I follow the barrel on its upward arc. I see the face behind the plume of smoke 
swirling from the muzzle. I am the man in the herringbone vest. 

 

I woke up with a scream trapped in my throat. 

 

 

I STEPPED OUTSIDE. Stood in the silver tarnish of a half-moon and glanced up to 
a sky riddled with stars. Crickets chirped in the shuttered darkness and a wind 
wafted through the trees. The ground was cool under my bare feet and suddenly, 
for the first time since we had crossed the border, I felt like I was back. 
After all these years, I was home again, standing on the soil of my ancestors. 
This was the soil on which my great-grandfather had married his third wife a 
year before dying in the cholera epidemic that hit Kabul in 1915. Shed borne 
him what his first two wives had failed to, a son at last. It was on this soil 
that my grandfather had gone on a hunting trip with King Nadir Shah and shot a 
deer. My mother had died on this soil. And on this soil, I had fought for my 
fathers love. 

 

I sat against one of the houses clay walls. The kinship I felt suddenly for the 
old land... it surprised me. Id been gone long enough to forget and be 
forgotten. I had a home in a land that might as well be in another galaxy to the 
people sleeping on the other side of the wall I leaned against. I thought I had 
forgotten about this land. But I hadnt. And, under the bony glow of a halfmoon, 
I sensed Afghanistan humming under my feet. Maybe Afghanistan hadnt forgotten 
me either. 

 

I looked westward and marveled that, somewhere over those mountains, Kabul still 
existed. It really existed, not just as an old memory, or as the heading of an 
AP story on page 15 of the San Francisco Chronicle. Somewhere over those 
mountains in the west slept the city where my harelipped brother and I had run 
kites. Somewhere over there, the blindfolded man from my dream had died a 


needless death. Once, over those mountains, I had made a choice. And now, a 
quarter of a century later, that choice had landed me right back on this soil. 

 

I was about to go back inside when I heard voices coming from the house. I 
recognized one as Wahids. 

 

--nothing left for the children. 

 

Were hungry but were not savages! He is a guest! What was I supposed to do? 
he said in a strained voice. 

 

--to find something tomorrow She sounded near tears. What do I feed-- 

 

I tiptoed away. I understood now why the boys hadnt shown any interest in the 
watch. They hadnt been staring at the watch at all. Theyd been staring at my 
food. 

 

 

WE SAID OUR GOOD - BYE S early the next morning. Just before I climbed into the 
Land Cruiser, I thanked Wahid for his hospitality. He pointed to the little 
house behind him. This is your home, he said. His three sons were standing in 
the doorway watching us. The little one was wearing the watch--it dangled around 
his twiggy wrist. 

 

I glanced in the side-view mirror as we pulled away. Wahid stood surrounded by 
his boys in a cloud of dust whipped up by the truck. It occurred to me that, in 
a different world, those boys wouldnt have been too hungry to chase after the 
car. 

 

Earlier that morning, when I was certain no one was looking, I did something I 
had done twenty-six years earlier: I planted a fistful of crumpled money under a 
mattress. 

 

TWENTY 

 

Farid had warned me. He had. But, as it turned out, he had wasted his breath. 

 

We were driving down the cratered road that winds from Jalalabad to Kabul. The 
last time Id traveled that road was in a tarpaulin-covered truck going the 
other way. Baba had nearly gotten himself shot by a singing, stoned Roussi 
officer--Baba had made me so mad that night, so scared, and, ultimately, so 
proud. The trek between Kabul and Jalalabad, a bone-jarring ride down a 
teetering pass snaking through the rocks, had become a relic now, a relic of two 
wars. Twenty years earlier, I had seen some of the first war with my own eyes. 
Grim reminders of it were strewn along the road: burned carcasses of old Soviet 
tanks, overturned military trucks gone to rust, a crushed Russian jeep that had 
plunged over the mountainside. The second war, I had watched on my TV screen. 
And now I was seeing it through Farids eyes. 

 

Swerving effortlessly around potholes in the middle of the broken road, Farid 
was a man in his element. He had become much chattier since our overnight stay 
at Wahids house. He had me sit in the passenger seat and looked at me when he 
spoke. He even smiled once or twice. Maneuvering the steering wheel with his 
mangled hand, he pointed to mud-hut villages along the way where hed known 
people years before. Most of those people, he said, were either dead or in 
refugee camps in Pakistan. And sometimes the dead are luckier, he said. 

 


He pointed to the crumbled, charred remains of a tiny village. It was just a 
tuft of blackened, roofless walls now. I saw a dog sleeping along one of the 
walls. I had a friend there once, Farid said. He was a very good bicycle 
repairman. He played the tabla well too. The Taliban killed him and his family 
and burned the village. 

 

We drove past the burned village, and the dog didnt move. 

 

 

IN THE OLD DAYS, the drive from Jalalabad to Kabul took two hours, maybe a 
little more. It took Farid and me over four hours to reach Kabul. And when we 
did... Farid warned me just after we passed the Mahipar dam. 

 

Kabul is not the way you remember it, he said. 

 

So I hear. 

 

Farid gave me a look that said hearing is not the same as seeing. And he was 
right. Because when Kabul finally did unroll before us, I was certain, 
absolutely certain, that he had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Farid must have 
seen my stupefied expression; shuttling people back and forth to Kabul, he would 
have become familiar with that expression on the faces of those who hadnt seen 
Kabul for a long time. 

 

He patted me on the shoulder. Welcome back, he said morosely. 

 

RUBBLE AND BEGGARS. Everywhere I looked, that was what I saw. I remembered 
beggars in the old days too--Baba always carried an extra handful of Afghani 
bills in his pocket just for them; Id never seen him deny a peddler. Now, 
though, they squatted at every street corner, dressed in shredded burlap rags, 
mud-caked hands held out for a coin. And the beggars were mostly children now, 
thin and grim-faced, some no older than five or six. They sat in the laps of 
their burqa-clad mothers alongside gutters at busy street corners and chanted 
Bakhshesh, bakhshesh! And something else, something I hadnt noticed right 
away: Hardly any of them sat with an adult male--the wars had made fathers a 
rare commodity in Afghanistan. 

 

We were driving westbound toward the Karteh-Seh district on what I remembered as 
a major thoroughfare in the seventies: 

 

Jadeh Maywand. Just north of us was the bone-dry Kabul River. On the hills to 
the south stood the broken old city wall. Just east of it was the Bala Hissar 
Fort--the ancient citadel that the warlord Dostum had occupied in 1992--on the 
Shirdarwaza mountain range, the same mountains from which Mujahedin forces had 
showered Kabul with rockets between 1992 and 1996, inflicting much of the damage 
I was witnessing now. The Shirdarwaza range stretched all the way west. It was 
from those mountains that I remember the firing of the Topeh chasht, the noon 
cannon. It went off every day to announce noontime, and also to signal the end 
of daylight fasting during the month of Ramadan. Youd hear the roar of that 
cannon all through the city in those days. 

 

I used to come here to Jadeh Maywand when I was a kid, I mumbled. There used 
to be shops here and hotels. Neon lights 

and restaurants. I used to buy kites from an old man named Saifo. He ran a 
little kite shop by the old police headquarters. 

 


The police headquarters is still there, Farid said. No shortage of police in 
this city But you wont find kites or kite shops on Jadeh Maywand or anywhere 
else in Kabul. Those days are over. 

 

Jadeh Maywand had turned into a giant sand castle. The buildings that hadnt 
entirely collapsed barely stood, with caved in roofs and walls pierced with 
rockets shells. Entire blocks had been obliterated to rubble. I saw a bullet-
pocked sign half buried at an angle in a heap of debris. It read DRINK COCA CO--
. I saw children playing in the ruins of a windowless building amid jagged 
stumps of brick and stone. Bicycle riders and mule-drawn carts swerved around 
kids, stray dogs, and piles of debris. A haze of dust hovered over the city and, 
across the river, a single plume of smoke rose to the sky. 

 

Where are the trees? I said. 

 

People cut them down for firewood in the winter, Farid said. The Shorawi cut 
a lot of them down too. 

 

Why? 

 

Snipers used to hide in them. 

 

A sadness came over me. Returning to Kabul was like running into an old, 
forgotten friend and seeing that life hadnt been good to him, that hed become 
homeless and destitute. 

 

My father built an orphanage in Shar-e-Kohna, the old city, south of here, I 
said. 

 

I remember it, Farid said. It was destroyed a few years ago. 

 

Can you pull over? I said. I want to take a quick walk here. 

 

Farid parked along the curb on a small backstreet next to a ramshackle, 
abandoned building with no door. That used to be a pharmacy, Farid muttered as 
we exited the truck. We walked back to Jadeh Maywand and turned right, heading 
west. Whats that smell? I said. Something was making my eyes water. 

 

Diesel, Farid replied. The citys generators are always going down, so 
electricity is unreliable, and people use diesel fuel. 

 

Diesel. Remember what this street smelled like in the old days? 

 

Farid smiled. Kabob. 

 

Lamb kabob, I said. 

 

Lamb, Farid said, tasting the word in his mouth. The only people in Kabul who 
get to eat lamb now are the Taliban. He pulled on my sleeve. Speaking of 
which... 

 

A vehicle was approaching us. Beard Patrol, Farid murmured. 

 

That was the first time I saw the Taliban. Id seen them on TV on the Internet, 
on the cover of magazines, and in newspapers. But here I was now, less than 
fifty feet from them, telling myself that the sudden taste in my mouth wasnt 
unadulterated, naked fear. Telling myself my flesh hadnt suddenly shrunk 


against my bones and my heart wasnt battering. Here they came. In all their 
glory. 

 

The red Toyota pickup truck idled past us. A handful of sternfaced young men sat 
on their haunches in the cab, Kalashnikovs slung on their shoulders. They all 
wore beards and black turbans. One of them, a dark-skinned man in his early 
twenties with thick, knitted eyebrows twirled a whip in his hand and 
rhythmically swatted the side of the truck with it. His roaming eyes fell on me. 
Held my gaze. Id never felt so naked in my entire life. Then the Talib spat 
tobacco-stained spittle and looked away. I found I could breathe again. The 
truck rolled down Jadeh Maywand, leaving in its trail a cloud of dust. 

 

What is the matter with you? Farid hissed. 

 

What? 

 

Dont ever stare at them! Do you understand me? Never! 

 

I didnt mean to, I said. 

 

Your friend is quite right, Agha. You might as well poke a rabid dog with a 
stick, someone said. This new voice belonged to an old beggar sitting barefoot 
on the steps of a bullet-scarred building. He wore a threadbare chapan worn to 
frayed shreds and a dirt-crusted turban. His left eyelid drooped over an empty 
socket. With an arthritic hand, he pointed to the direction the red truck had 
gone. They drive around looking. Looking and hoping that someone will provoke 
them. Sooner or later, someone always obliges. Then the dogs feast and the days 
boredom is broken at last and everyone says Allah-u-akbar! And on those days 
when no one offends, well, there is always random violence, isnt there? 

 

Keep your eyes on your feet when the Talibs are near, Farid said. 

 

Your friend dispenses good advice, the old beggar chimed in. He barked a wet 
cough and spat in a soiled handkerchief. Forgive me, but could you spare a few 
Afghanis? he breathed. 

 

Bas. Lets go, Farid said, pulling me by the arm. 

 

I handed the old man a hundred thousand Afghanis, or the equivalent of about 
three dollars. When he leaned forward to take the money, his stench--like sour 
milk and feet that hadnt been washed in weeks--flooded my nostrils and made my 
gorge rise. He hurriedly slipped the money in his waist, his lone eye darting 
side to side. A world of thanks for your benevolence, Agha sahib. 

 

Do you know where the orphanage is in Karteh-Seh? I said. 

 

Its not hard to find, its just west of Darulaman Boulevard, he said. The 
children were moved from here to Karteh-Seh after the rockets hit the old 
orphanage. Which is like saving someone from the lions cage and throwing them 
in the tigers. 

 

Thank you, Agha, I said. I turned to go. 

 

That was your first time, nay? 

 

Im sorry? 

 


The first time you saw a Talib. 

 

I said nothing. The old beggar nodded and smiled. Revealed a handful of 
remaining teeth, all crooked and yellow. I remember the first time I saw them 
rolling into Kabul. What a joyous day that was! he said. An end to the 
killing! Wah wah! But like the poet says: How seamless seemed love and then 
came trouble! 

 

A smile sprouted on my face. I know that ghazal. Thats Hfez. 

 

Yes it is. Indeed, the old man replied. I should know. I used to teach it at 
the university. 

 

You did? 

 

The old man coughed. From 1958 to 1996. I taught Hfez, Khayym, Rumi, Beydel, 
Jami, Saadi. Once, I was even a guest lecturer in Tehran, 1971 that was. I gave 
a lecture on the mystic Beydel. I remember how they all stood and clapped. Ha! 
He shook his head. But you saw those young men in the truck. What value do you 
think they see in Sufism? 

 

My mother taught at the university, I said. 

 

And what was her name? 

 

Sofia Akrami. 

 

His eye managed to twinkle through the veil of cataracts. The desert weed lives 
on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts. Such grace, such dignity, such a 
tragedy. 

 

You knew my mother? I asked, kneeling before the old man. 

 

Yes indeed, the old beggar said. We used to sit and talk after class. The 
last time was on a rainy day just before final exams when we shared a marvelous 
slice of almond cake together. Almond cake with hot tea and honey. She was 
rather obviously pregnant by then, and all the more beautiful for it. I will 
never forget what she said to me that day. 

 

What? Please tell me. Baba had always described my mother to me in broad 
strokes, like, She was a great woman. But what I had always thirsted for were 
the details: the way her hair glinted in the sunlight, her favorite ice cream 
flavor, the songs she liked to hum, did she bite her nails? Baba took his 
memories of her to the grave with him. Maybe speaking her name would have 
reminded him of his guilt, of what he had done so soon after she had died. Or 
maybe his loss had been so great, his pain so deep, he couldnt bear to talk 
about her. Maybe both. 

 

She said, Im so afraid. And I said, Why?, and she said, Because Im so 
profoundly happy, Dr. Rasul. Happiness like this is frightening. I asked her 
why and she said, They only let you be this happy if theyre preparing to take 
something from you, and I said, Hush up, now. Enough of this silliness. 

 

Farid took my arm. We should go, Amir agha, he said softly. I snatched my arm 
away. What else? What else did she say? 

 


The old mans features softened. I wish I remembered for you. But I dont. Your 
mother passed away a long time ago and my memory is as shattered as these 
buildings. I am sorry. 

 

But even a small thing, anything at all. 

 

The old man smiled. Ill try to remember and thats a promise. Come back and 
find me. 

 

Thank you, I said. Thank you so much. And I meant it. Now I knew my mother 
had liked almond cake with honey and hot tea, that shed once used the word 
profoundly, that shed fretted 

about her happiness. I had just learned more about my mother from this old man 
on the street than I ever did from Baba. 

 

Walking back to the truck, neither one of us commented about what most non-
Afghans would have seen as an improbable coincidence, that a beggar on the 
street would happen to know my mother. Because we both knew that in Afghanistan, 
and particularly in Kabul, such absurdity was commonplace. Baba used to say, 
Take two Afghans whove never met, put them in a room for ten minutes, and 
theyll figure out how theyre related. 

 

We left the old man on the steps of that building. I meant to take him up on his 
offer, come back and see if hed unearthed any more stories about my mother. But 
I never saw him again. 

 

 

WE FOUND THE NEW ORPHANAGE in the northern part of Karteh-Seh, along the banks 
of the dried-up Kabul River. It was a flat, barracks-style building with 
splintered walls and windows boarded with planks of wood. Farid had told me on 
the way there that Karteh-Seh had been one of the most war-ravaged neighborhoods 
in Kabul, and, as we stepped out of the truck, the evidence was overwhelming. 
The cratered streets were flanked by little more than ruins of shelled buildings 
and abandoned homes. We passed the rusted skeleton of an overturned car, a TV 
set with no screen half-buried in rubble, a wall with the words ZENDA BAD TAL 
IRAN! (Long live the Taliban!) sprayed in black. 

 

A short, thin, balding man with a shaggy gray beard opened the door. He wore a 
ragged tweed jacket, a skullcap, and a pair of eyeglasses with one chipped lens 
resting on the tip of his nose. Behind the glasses, tiny eyes like black peas 
flitted from me to Farid. Salaam alaykum, he said. 

 

Salaam alaykum, I said. I showed him the Polaroid. Were searching for this 
boy. 

 

He gave the photo a cursory glance. I am sorry. I have never seen him. 

 

You barely looked at the picture, my friend, Farid said. Why not take a 
closer look? 

 

Lotfan, I added. Please. 

 

The man behind the door took the picture. Studied it. Handed it back to me. 
Nay, sorry. I know just about every single child in this institution and that 
one doesnt look familiar. Now, if youll permit me, I have work to do. He 
closed the door. Locked the bolt. 

 


I rapped on the door with my knuckles. Agha! Agha, please open the door. We 
dont mean him any harm. 

 

I told you. Hes not here, his voice came from the other side. Now, please go 
away. 

 

Farid stepped up to the door, rested his forehead on it. Friend, we are not 
with the Taliban, he said in a low, cautious voice. The man who is with me 
wants to take this boy to a safe place. 

 

I come from Peshawar, I said. A good friend of mine knows an American couple 
there who run a charity home for children. I felt the mans presence on the 
other side of the door. Sensed him standing there, listening, hesitating, caught 
between suspicion and hope. Look, I knew Sohrabs father, I said. His name 
was Hassan. His mothers name was Farzana. He called his grand mother Sasa. He 
knows how to read and write. And hes good with the slingshot. Theres hope for 
this boy, Agha, a way out. Please open the door. 

 

From the other side, only silence. 

 

Im his half uncle, I said. 

 

A moment passed. Then a key rattled in the lock. The mans 

narrow face reappeared in the crack. He looked from me to Farid and back. You 
were wrong about one thing. 

 

What? 

 

Hes great with the slingshot. 

 

I smiled. 

 

Hes inseparable from that thing. He tucks it in the waist of his pants 
everywhere he goes. 

 

 

THE MAN WHO LET US IN introduced himself as Zaman, the director of the 
orphanage. Ill take you to my office, he said. 

 

We followed him through dim, grimy hallways where barefoot children dressed in 
frayed sweaters ambled around. We walked past rooms with no floor covering but 
matted carpets and windows shuttered with sheets of plastic. Skeleton frames of 
steel beds, most with no mattress, filled the rooms. 

 

How many orphans live here? Farid asked. 

 

More than we have room for. About two hundred and fifty, Zaman said over his 
shoulder. But theyre not all yateem. Many of them have lost their fathers in 
the war, and their mothers cant feed them because the Taliban dont allow them 
to work. So they bring their children here. He made a sweeping gesture with his 
hand and added ruefully, This place is better than the street, but not that 
much better. This building was never meant to be lived in--it used to be a 
storage warehouse for a carpet manufacturer. So theres no water heater and 
theyve let the well go dry. He dropped his voice. Ive asked the Taliban for 
money to dig a new well more times than I remember and they just twirl their 
rosaries and tell me there is no money. No money. He snickered. 

 


He pointed to a row of beds along the wall. We dont have enough beds, and not 
enough mattresses for the beds we do have. Worse, we dont have enough 
blankets. He showed us a lit tle girl skipping rope with two other kids. You 
see that girl? This past winter, the children had to share blankets. Her brother 
died of exposure. He walked on. The last time I checked, we have less than a 
months supply of rice left in the warehouse, and, when that runs out, the 
children will have to eat bread and tea for breakfast and dinner. I noticed he 
made no mention of lunch. 

 

He stopped and turned to me. There is very little shelter here, almost no food, 
no clothes, no clean water. What I have in ample supply here is children whove 
lost their childhood. But the tragedy is that these are the lucky ones. Were 
filled beyond capacity and every day I turn away mothers who bring their 
children. He took a step toward me. You say there is hope for Sohrab? I pray 
you dont lie, Agha. But... you may well be too late. 

 

What do you mean? 

 

Zamans eyes shifted. Follow me. 

 

 

WHAT PASSED FOR THE DIRECTORS OFFICE was four bare, cracked walls, a mat on the 
floor, a table, and two folding chairs. As Zaman and I sat down, I saw a gray 
rat poke its head from a burrow in the wall and flit across the room. I cringed 
when it sniffed at my shoes, then Zamans, and scurried through the open door. 

 

What did you mean it may be too late? I said. 

 

Would you like some chai? I could make some. 

 

Nay, thank you. Id rather we talk. 

 

Zaman tilted back in his chair and crossed his arms on his chest. What I have 
to tell you is not pleasant. Not to mention that it may be very dangerous. 

 

For whom? 

 

You. Me. And, of course, for Sohrab, if its not too late already. 

 

I need to know, I said. 

 

He nodded. So you say. But first I want to ask you a question: 

 

How badly do you want to find your nephew? 

 

I thought of the street fights wed get into when we were kids, all the times 
Hassan used to take them on for me, two against one, sometimes three against 
one. Id wince and watch, tempted to step in, but always stopping short, always 
held back by something. 

 

I looked at the hallway, saw a group of kids dancing in a circle. A little girl, 
her left leg amputated below the knee, sat on a ratty mattress and watched, 
smiling and clapping along with the other children. I saw Farid watching the 
children too, his own mangled hand hanging at his side. I remembered Wahids 
boys and... I realized something: I would not leave Afghanistan without finding 
Sohrab. Tell me where he is, I said. 

 


Zamans gaze lingered on me. Then he nodded, picked up a pencil, and twirled it 
between his fingers. Keep my name out of it. 

 

I promise. 

 

He tapped the table with the pencil. Despite your promise, I think Ill live to 
regret this, but perhaps its just as well. Im damned anyway. But if something 
can be done for Sohrab... Ill tell you because I believe you. You have the look 
of a desperate man. He was quiet for a long time. There is a Talib official, 
he muttered. He visits once every month or two. He brings cash with him, not a 
lot, but better than nothing at all. His shifty eyes fell on me, rolled away. 
Usually hell take a girl. But not always. 

 

And you allow this? Farid said behind me. He was going around the table, 
closing in on Zaman. 

 

What choice do I have? Zaman shot back. He pushed himself away from the desk. 

 

Youre the director here, Farid said. Your job is watch over these children. 

 

Theres nothing I can do to stop it. 

 

Youre selling children! Farid barked. 

 

Farid, sit down! Let it go! I said. But I was too late. Because suddenly Farid 
was leaping over the table. Zamans chair went flying as Farid fell on him and 
pinned him to the floor. The director thrashed beneath Farid and made muffled 
screaming sounds. His legs kicked a desk drawer free and sheets of paper spilled 
to the floor. 

 

I ran around the desk and saw why Zamans screaming was muffled: Farid was 
strangling him. I grasped Farids shoulders with both hands and pulled hard. He 
snatched away from me. Thats enough! I barked. But Farids face had flushed 
red, his lips pulled back in a snarl. Im killing him! You cant stop me! Im 
killing him, he sneered. 

 

Get off him! 

 

Im killing him! Something in his voice told me that if I didnt do something 
quickly Id witness my first murder. 

 

The children are watching, Farid. Theyre watching, I said. His shoulder 
muscles tightened under my grip and, for a moment, I thought hed keep squeezing 
Zamans neck anyway. Then he turned around, saw the children. They were standing 
silently by the door, holding hands, some of them crying. I felt Farids muscles 
slacken. He dropped his hands, rose to his feet. He looked down on Zaman and 
dropped a mouthful of spit on his face. Then he walked to the door and closed 
it. 

 

Zaman struggled to his feet, blotted his bloody lips with his sleeve, wiped the 
spit off his cheek. Coughing and wheezing, he put on his skullcap, his glasses, 
saw both lenses had cracked, and took them off. He buried his face in his hands. 
None of us said anything for a long time. 

 

He took Sohrab a month ago, Zaman finally croaked, hands still shielding his 
face. 

 


You call yourself a director? Farid said. 

 

Zaman dropped his hands. I havent been paid in over six months. Im broke 
because Ive spent my lifes savings on this orphanage. Everything I ever owned 
or inherited I sold to run this godforsaken place. You think I dont have family 
in Pakistan and Iran? I could have run like everyone else. But I didnt. I 
stayed. I stayed because of them. He pointed to the door. If I deny him one 
child, he takes ten. So I let him take one and leave the judging to Allah. I 
swallow my pride and take his goddamn filthy... dirty money. Then I go to the 
bazaar and buy food for the children. 

 

Farid dropped his eyes. 

 

What happens to the children he takes? I asked. 

 

Zaman rubbed his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. Some times they come 
back. 

 

Who is he? How do we find him? I said. 

 

Go to Ghazi Stadium tomorrow. Youll see him at halftime. Hell be the one 
wearing black sunglasses. He picked up his broken glasses and turned them in 
his hands. I want you to go now. The children are frightened. 

 

He escorted us out. 

 

As the truck pulled away, I saw Zaman in the side-view mirror, standing in the 
doorway. A group of children surrounded him, clutching the hem of his loose 
shirt. I saw he had put on his broken glasses. 

 

TWENTY-ONE 

 

We crossed the river and drove north through the crowded Pashtunistan Square. 
Baba used to take me to Khyber Restaurant there for kabob. The building was 
still standing, but its doors were padlocked, the windows shattered, and the 
letters K and R missing from its name. 

 

I saw a dead body near the restaurant. There had been a hanging. A young man 
dangled from the end of a rope tied to a beam, his face puffy and blue, the 
clothes hed worn on the last day of his life shredded, bloody. Hardly anyone 
seemed to notice him. 

 

We rode silently through the square and headed toward the WazirAkbar Khan 
district. Everywhere I looked, a haze of dust covered the city and its sun-dried 
brick buildings. A few blocks north of Pashtunistan Square, Farid pointed to two 
men talking animatedly at a busy street corner. One of them was hobbling on one 
leg, his other leg amputated below the knee. He cradled an artificial leg in his 
arms. You know what theyre doing? Haggling over the leg. 

 

Hes selling his leg? 

 

Farid nodded. You can get good money for it on the black market. Feed your kids 
for a couple of weeks. 

 

 

To MY SURPRISE, most of the houses in the WazirAkbar Khan district still had 
roofs and standing walls. In fact, they were in pretty good shape. Trees still 


peeked over the walls, and the streets werent nearly as rubble-strewn as the 
ones in Karteh-Seh. Faded streets signs, some twisted and bullet-pocked, still 
pointed the way. 

 

This isnt so bad, I remarked. 

 

No surprise. Most of the important people live here now. 

 

Taliban? 

 

Them too, Farid said. 

 

Who else? 

 

He drove us into a wide street with fairly clean sidewalks and walled homes on 
either side. The people behind the Taliban. The real brains of this government, 
if you can call it that: Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis, Farid said. He pointed 
northwest. Street 15, that way, is called Sarak-e-Mehmana. Street of the 
Guests. Thats what they call them here, guests. I think someday these guests 
are going to pee all over the carpet. 

 

I think thats it! I said. Over there! I pointed to the landmark that used 
to serve as a guide for me when I was a kid. If you ever get lost, Baba used to 
say, remember that our street is the one with the pink house at the end of it. 
The pink house with the steeply pitched roof had been the neighborhoods only 
house of that color in the old days. It still was. 

 

Farid turned onto the street. I saw Babas house right away. 

 

WE FIND THE LITTLE TURTLE behind tangles of sweetbrier in the yard. We dont 
know how it got there and were too excited to care. We paint its shell a bright 
red, Hassans idea, and a good one: 

 

This way, well never lose it in the bushes. We pretend were a pair of 
daredevil explorers whove discovered a giant prehistoric monster in some 
distant jungle and weve brought it back for the world to see. We set it down in 
the wooden wagon Ali built Hassan last winter for his birthday, pretend its a 
giant steel cage. Behold the firebreathing monstrosity! We march on the grass 
and pull the wagon behind us, around apple and cherry trees, which become 
skyscrap ers soaring into clouds, heads poking out of thousands of windows to 
watch the spectacle passing below. We walk over the little semi lunar bridge 
Baba has built near a cluster of fig trees; it becomes a great suspension bridge 
joining cities, and the little pond below, a foamy sea. Fireworks explode above 
the bridges massive pylons and armed soldiers salute us on both sides as 
gigantic steel cables shoot to the sky. The little turtle bouncing around in the 
cab, we drag the wagon around the circular red brick driveway outside the 
wroughtiron gates and return the salutes of the worlds leaders as they stand 
and applaud. We are Hassan and Amir, famed adventurers and the worlds greatest 
explorers, about to receive a medal of honor for our courageous feat... 

 

 

GINGERLY, I WALKED up the driveway where tufts of weed now grew between the sun-
faded bricks. I stood outside the gates of my fathers house, feeling like a 
stranger. I set my hands on the rusty bars, remembering how Id run through 
these same gates thousands of times as a child, for things that mattered not at 
all now and yet had seemed so important then. I peered in. 

 


The driveway extension that led from the gates to the yard, where Hassan and I 
took turns falling the summer we learned to ride a bike, didnt look as wide or 
as long as I remembered it. The asphalt had split in a lightning-streak pattern, 
and more tangles of weed sprouted through the fissures. Most of the poplar trees 
had been chopped down--the trees Hassan and I used to climb to shine our mirrors 
into the neighbors homes. The ones still standing were nearly leafless. The 
Wall of Ailing Corn was still there, though I saw no corn, ailing or otherwise, 
along that wall now. The paint had begun to peel and sections of it had sloughed 
off altogether. The lawn had turned the same brown as the haze of dust hovering 
over the city, dotted by bald patches of dirt where nothing grew at all. 

 

A jeep was parked in the driveway and that looked all wrong: 

 

Babas black Mustang belonged there. For years, the Mustangs eight cylinders 
roared to life every morning, rousing me from sleep. I saw that oil had spilled 
under the jeep and stained the driveway like a big Rorschach inkblot. Beyond the 
jeep, an empty wheelbarrow lay on its side. I saw no sign of the rosebushes that 
Baba and Ali had planted on the left side of the driveway, only dirt that 
spilled onto the asphalt. And weeds. 

 

Farid honked twice behind me. We should go, Agha. Well draw attention, he 
called. 

 

Just give me one more minute, I said. 

 

The house itself was far from the sprawling white mansion I remembered from my 
childhood. It looked smaller. The roof sagged and the plaster was cracked. The 
windows to the living room, the foyer, and the upstairs guest bathroom were 
broken, patched haphazardly with sheets of clear plastic or wooden boards nailed 
across the frames. The paint, once sparkling white, had faded to ghostly gray 
and eroded in parts, revealing the layered bricks beneath. The front steps had 
crumbled. Like so much else in Kabul, my fathers house was the picture of 
fallen splendor. 

 

I found the window to my old bedroom, second floor, third window sOuth of the 
main steps to the house. I stood on tiptoes, saw nothing behind the window but 
shadows. Twenty-five years earlier, I had stood behind that same window, thick 
rain dripping down the panes and my breath fogging up the glass. I had watched 
Hassan and Ali load their belongings into the trunk of my fathers car. 

 

Amir agha, Farid called again. 

 

Im coming, I shot back. 

 

Insanely, I wanted to go in. Wanted to walk up the front steps where Ali used to 
make Hassan and me take off our snow boots. I wanted to step into the foyer, 
smell the orange peel Ali always tossed into the stove to burn with sawdust. Sit 
at the kitchen table, have tea with a slice of _naan_, listen to Hassan sing old 
Hazara songs. 

 

Another honk. I walked back to the Land Cruiser parked along the sidewalk. Farid 
sat smoking behind the wheel. 

 

I have to look at one more thing, I told him. 

 

Can you hurry? 

 


Give me ten minutes. 

 

Go, then. Then, just as I was turning to go: Just forget it all. Makes it 
easier. 

 

To what? 

 

To go on, Farid said. He flicked his cigarette out of the window. How much 
more do you need to see? Let me save you the trouble: Nothing that you remember 
has survived. Best to forget. 

 

I dont want to forget anymore, I said. Give me ten minutes. 

 

 

WE HARDLY BROKE A SWEAT, Hassan and I, when we hiked 

 

up the hill just north of Babas house. We scampered about the hilltop chasing 
each other or sat on a sloped ridge where there was a good view of the airport 
in the distance. Wed watch airplanes take off and land. Go running again. 

 

Now, by the time I reached the top of the craggy hill, each ragged breath felt 
like inhaling fire. Sweat trickled down my face. I stood wheezing for a while, a 
stitch in my side. Then I went looking for the abandoned cemetery. It didnt 
take me long to find it. It was still there, and so was the old pomegranate 
tree. 

 

I leaned against the gray stone gateway to the cemetery where Hassan had buried 
his mother. The old metal gates hanging off the hinges were gone, and the 
headstones were barely visible through the thick tangles of weeds that had 
claimed the plot. A pair of crows sat on the low wall that enclosed the 
cemetery. 

 

Hassan had said in his letter that the pomegranate tree hadnt borne fruit in 
years. Looking at the wilted, leafless tree, I doubted it ever would again. I 
stood under it, remembered all the times wed climbed it, straddled its 
branches, our legs swinging, dappled sunlight flickering through the leaves and 
casting on our faces a mosaic of light and shadow. The tangy taste of 
pomegranate crept into my mouth. 

 

I hunkered down on my knees and brushed my hands against the trunk. I found what 
I was looking for. The carving had dulled, almost faded altogether, but it was 
still there: Amir and Hassan. The Sultans of Kabul. I traced the curve of each 
letter with my fingers. Picked small bits of bark from the tiny crevasses. 

 

I sat cross-legged at the foot of the tree and looked south on the city of my 
childhood. In those days, treetops poked behind the walls of every house. The 
sky stretched wide and blue, and laundry drying on clotheslines glimmered in the 
sun. If you listened hard, you might even have heard the call of the fruit 
seller passing through Wazir Akbar Khan with his donkey: Cherries! Apricots! 
Grapes! In the early evening, you would have heard azan, the mueszzins call to 
prayer from the mosque in Shar-e-Nau. 

 

I heard a honk and saw Farid waving at me. It was time to go. 

 

 


WE DROVE SOUTH AGAIN, back toward Pashtunistan Square. We passed several more 
red pickup trucks with armed, bearded young men crammed into the cabs. Farid 
cursed under his breath every time we passed one. 

 

I paid for a room at a small hotel near Pashtunistan Square. Three little girls 
dressed in identical black dresses and white scarves clung to the slight, 
bespectacled man behind the counter. He charged me $75, an unthinkable price 
given the run-down appearance of the place, but I didnt mind. Exploitation to 
finance a beach house in Hawaii was one thing. Doing it to feed your kids was 
another. 

 

There was no hot running water and the cracked toilet didnt flush. Just a 
single steel-frame bed with a worn mattress, a ragged blanket, and a wooden 
chair in the corner. The window overlooking the square had broken, hadnt been 
replaced. As I lowered my suitcase, I noticed a dried bloodstain on the wall 
behind the bed. 

 

I gave Farid some money and he went out to get food. He returned with four 
sizzling skewers of kabob, fresh _naan_, and a bowl of white rice. We sat on the 
bed and all but devoured the food. There was one thing that hadnt changed in 
Kabul after all: 

 

The kabob was as succulent and delicious as I remembered. 

 

That night, I took the bed and Farid lay on the floor, wrapped himself with an 
extra blanket for which the hotel owner charged me an additional fee. No light 
came into the room except for the moonbeams streaming through the broken window. 
Farid said the owner had told him that Kabul had been without electricity for 
two days now and his generator needed fixing. We talked for a while. He told me 
about growing up in Mazar-i-Sharif, in Jalalabad. He told me about a time 
shortly after he and his father joined the jihad and fought the Shorawi in the 
Panjsher Valley. They were stranded without food and ate locust to survive. He 
told me of the day helicopter gunfire killed his father, of the day the land 
mine took his two daughters. He asked me about America. I told him that in 
America you could step into a grocery store and buy any of fifteen or twenty 
different types of cereal. The lamb was always fresh and the milk cold, the 
fruit plentiful and the water clear. Every home had a TV, and every TV a remote, 
and you could get a satellite dish if you wanted. Receive over five hundred 
channels. 

 

Five hundred? Farid exclaimed. 

 

Five hundred. 

 

We fell silent for a while. Just when I thought he had fallen asleep, Farid 
chuckled. Agha, did you hear what Mullah Nasrud din did when his daughter came 
home and complained that her husband had beaten her? I could feel him smiling 
in the dark and a smile of my own formed on my face. There wasnt an Afghan in 
the world who didnt know at least a few jokes about the bumbling mullah. 

 

What? 

 

He beat her too, then sent her back to tell the husband that Mullah was no 
fool: If the bastard was going to beat his daughter, then Mullah would beat his 
wife in return. 

 


I laughed. Partly at the joke, partly at how Afghan humor never changed. Wars 
were waged, the Internet was invented, and a robot had rolled on the surface of 
Mars, and in Afghanistan we were still telling Mullah Nasruddin jokes. Did you 
hear about the time Mullah had placed a heavy bag on his shoulders and was 
riding his donkey? I said. 

 

No. 

 

Someone on the street said why dont you put the bag on the donkey? And he 
said, That would be cruel, Im heavy enough already for the poor thing. 

 

We exchanged Mullah Nasruddin jokes until we ran out of them and we fell silent 
again. 

 

Amir agha? Farid said, startling me from near sleep. 

 

Yes? 

 

Why are you here? I mean, why are you really here? 

 

I told you. 

 

For the boy? 

 

For the boy. 

 

Farid shifted on the ground. Its hard to believe. 

 

Sometimes I myself can hardly believe Im here. 

 

No... What I mean to ask is why that boy? You come all the way from America 
for... a Shia? 

 

That killed all the laughter in me. And the sleep. I am tired, I said. Lets 
just get some sleep. 

 

Farids snoring soon echoed through the empty room. I stayed awake, hands 
crossed on my chest, staring into the starlit night through the broken window, 
and thinking that maybe what people said about Afghanistan was true. Maybe it 
was a hopeless place. 

 

 

A BUSTLING CROWD was filling Ghazi Stadium when we walked through the entrance 
tunnels. Thousands of people milled about the tightly packed concrete terraces. 
Children played in the aisles and chased each other up and down the steps. The 
scent of garbanzo beans in spicy sauce hung in the air, mixed with the smell of 
dung and sweat. Farid and I walked past street peddlers selling cigarettes, pine 
nuts, and biscuits. 

 

A scrawny boy in a tweed jacket grabbed my elbow and spoke into my ear. Asked me 
if I wanted to buy some sexy pictures. 

 

Very sexy, Agha, he said, his alert eyes darting side to side-- reminding me 
of a girl who, a few years earlier, had tried to sell me crack in the Tenderloin 
district in San Francisco. The kid peeled one side of his jacket open and gave 
me a fleeting glance of his sexy pictures: postcards of Hindi movies showing 


doe-eyed sultry actresses, fully dressed, in the arms of their leading men. So 
sexy, he repeated. 

 

Nay, thanks, I said, pushing past him. 

 

He gets caught, theyll give him a flogging that will waken his father in the 
grave, Farid muttered. 

 

There was no assigned seating, of course. No one to show us politely to our 
section, aisle, row, and seat. There never had been, even in the old days of the 
monarchy. We found a decent spot to sit, just left of midfield, though it took 
some shoving and elbowing on Farids part. 

 

I remembered how green the playing field grass had been in the 70s when Baba 
used to bring me to soccer games here. Now the pitch was a mess. There were 
holes and craters everywhere, most notably a pair of deep holes in the ground 
behind the southend goalposts. And there was no grass at all, just dirt. When 
the two teams finally took the field--all wearing long pants despite the heat--
and play began, it became difficult to follow the ball in the clouds of dust 
kicked up by the players. Young, whip-toting Talibs roamed the aisles, striking 
anyone who cheered too loudly. 

 

They brought them out shortly after the halftime whistle blew. A pair of dusty 
red pickup trucks, like the ones Id seen around town since Id arrived, rode 
into the stadium through the gates. The crowd rose to its feet. A woman dressed 
in a green burqa sat in the cab of one truck, a blindfolded man in the other. 
The trucks drove around the track, slowly, as if to let the crowd get a long 
look. It had the desired effect: People craned their necks, pointed, stood on 
tiptoes. Next to me, Farids Adams apple bobbed up and down as he mumbled a 
prayer under his breath. 

 

The red trucks entered the playing field, rode toward one end in twin clouds of 
dust, sunlight reflecting off their hubcaps. A third truck met them at the end 
of the field. This ones cab was filled with something and I suddenly understood 
the purpose of those two holes behind the goalposts. They unloaded the third 
truck. The crowd murmured in anticipation. 

 

Do you want to stay? Farid said gravely. 

 

No, I said. I had never in my life wanted to be away from a place as badly as 
I did now. But we have to stay. 

 

Two Talibs with Kalashnikovs slung across their shoulders helped the blindfolded 
man from the first truck and two others helped the burqa-clad woman. The womans 
knees buckled under her and she slumped to the ground. The soldiers pulled her 
up and she slumped again. When they tried to lift her again, she screamed and 
kicked. I will never, as long as I draw breath, forget the sound of that scream. 
It was the cry of a wild animal trying to pry its mangled leg free from the bear 
trap. Two more Talibs joined in and helped force her into one of the chest-deep 
holes. The blindfolded man, on the other hand, quietly allowed them to lower him 
into the hole dug for him. Now only the accused pairs torsos protruded from the 
ground. 

 

A chubby, white-bearded cleric dressed in gray garments stood near the goalposts 
and cleared his throat into a handheld microphone. Behind him the woman in the 
hole was still screaming. He recited a lengthy prayer from the Koran, his nasal 
voice undulating through the sudden hush of the stadiums crowd. I remem bered 


something Baba had said to me a long time ago: Piss on the beards of all those 
self-righteous monkeys. They do nothing but thumb their rosaries and recite a 
book written in a tongue they dont even understand. God help us all if 
Afghanistan ever falls into their hands. 

 

When the prayer was done, the cleric cleared his throat. Brothers and sisters! 
he called, speaking in Farsi, his voice booming through the stadium. We are 
here today to carry out Sharia. We are here today to carry out justice. We are 
here today because the will of Allah and the word of the Prophet Muham mad, 
peace be upon him, are alive and well here in Afghanistan, our beloved homeland. 
We listen to what God says and we obey because we are nothing but humble, 
powerless creatures before Gods greatness. And what does God say? I ask you! 
WHAT DOES GOD SAY? God says that every sinner must be punished in a manner 
befitting his sin. Those are not my words, nor the words of my brothers. Those 
are the words of GOD! He pointed with his free hand to the sky. My head was 
pounding and the sun felt much too hot. 

 

Every sinner must be punished in a manner befitting his sin! the cleric 
repeated into the mike, lowering his voice, enunciating each word slowly, 
dramatically. And what manner of punishment, brothers and sisters, befits the 
adulterer? How shall we punish those who dishonor the sanctity of marriage? How 
shall we deal with those who spit in the face of God? How shall we answer those 
who throw stones at the windows of Gods house? WE SHALL THROW THE STONES BACK! 
He shut off the microphone. A low-pitched murmur spread through the crowd. 

 

Next to me, Farid was shaking his head. And they call themselves Muslims, he 
whispered. 

 

Then a tall, broad-shouldered man stepped out of the pickup truck. The sight of 
him drew cheers from a few spectators. This time, no one was struck with a whip 
for cheering too loudly. The tall mans sparkling white garment glimmered in the 
afternoon sun. The hem of his loose shirt fluttered in the breeze, his arms 
spread like those of Jesus on the cross. He greeted the crowd by turning slowly 
in a full circle. When he faced our section, I saw he was wearing dark round 
sunglasses like the ones John Lennon wore. 

 

That must be our man, Farid said. 

 

The tall Talib with the black sunglasses walked to the pile of stones they had 
unloaded from the third truck. He picked up a rock and showed it to the crowd. 
The noise fell, replaced by a buzzing sound that rippled through the stadium. I 
looked around me and saw that everyone was tsking. The Talib, looking absurdly 
like a baseball pitcher on the mound, hurled the stone at the blindfolded man in 
the hole. It struck the side of his head. The woman screamed again. The crowd 
made a startled OH! sound. I closed my eyes and covered my face with my hands. 
The spectators OH! rhymed with each flinging of the stone, and that went on 
for a while. When they stopped, I asked Farid if it was over. He said no. I 
guessed the peoples throats had tired. I dont know how much longer I sat with 
my face in my hands. I know that I reopened my eyes when I heard people around 
me asking, Mord? Mord? Is he dead? 

 

The man in the hole was now a mangled mess of blood and shredded rags. His head 
slumped forward, chin on chest. The Talib in the John Lennon sunglasses was 
looking down at another man squatting next to the hole, tossing a rock up and 
down in his 


hand. The squatting man had one end of a stethoscope to his ears and the other 
pressed on the chest of the man in the hole. He removed the stethoscope from his 
ears and shook his head no at the Talib in the sunglasses. The crowd moaned. 

 

John Lennon walked back to the mound. 

 

When it was all over, when the bloodied corpses had been unceremoniously tossed 
into the backs of red pickup trucks--separate ones--a few men with shovels 
hurriedly filled the holes. One of them made a passing attempt at covering up 
the large blood stains by kicking dirt over them. A few minutes later, the teams 
took the field. Second half was under way. 

 

Our meeting was arranged for three oclock that afternoon. The swiftness with 
which the appointment was set surprised me. Id expected delays, a round of 
questioning at least, perhaps a check of our papers. But I was reminded of how 
unofficial even official matters still were in Afghanistan: all Farid had to do 
was tell one of the whip-carrying Talibs that we had personal business to 
discuss with the man in white. Farid and he exchanged words. The guy with the 
whip then nodded and shouted something in Pashtu to a young man on the field, 
who ran to the south-end goalposts where the Talib in the sunglasses was 
chatting with the plump cleric whod given the sermon. The three spoke. I saw 
the guy in the sunglasses look up. He nodded. Said something in the messengers 
ear. The young man relayed the message back to us. 

 

It was set, then. Three oclock. 

 

TWENTY-TWO 

 

Farid eased the Land Cruiser up the driveway of a big house in Wazir Akbar Khan. 
He parked in the shadows of willow trees that spilled over the walls of the 
compound located on Street 15, Sarak-e-Mehmana, Street of the Guests. He killed 
the engine and we sat for a minute, listening to the tink-tink of the engine 
cooling off, neither one of us saying anything. Farid shifted on his seat and 
toyed with the keys still hanging from the ignition switch. I could tell he was 
readying himself to tell me something. 

 

I guess Ill wait in the car for you, he said finally, his tone a little 
apologetic. He wouldnt look at me. This is your business now. I-- 

 

I patted his arm. Youve done much more than Ive paid you for. I dont expect 
you to go with me. But I wished I didnt have to go in alone. Despite what I 
had learned about Baba, I wished he were standing alongside me now. Baba would 
have busted through the front doors and demanded to be taken to the man in 
charge, piss on the beard of anyone who stood in his way. But Baba was long 
dead, buried in the Afghan section of a little cemetery in Hayward. Just last 
month, Soraya and I had placed a bouquet of daisies and freesias beside his 
headstone. I was on my own. 

 

I stepped out of the car and walked to the tall, wooden front gates of the 
house. I rang the bell but no buzz came--still no electricity--and I had to 
pound on the doors. A moment later, I heard terse voices from the other side and 
a pair of men toting Kalash nikovs answered the door. 

 

I glanced at Farid sitting in the car and mouthed, Ill be back, not so sure at 
all that I would be. 

 


The armed men frisked me head to toe, patted my legs, felt my crotch. One of 
them said something in Pashtu and they both chuckled. We stepped through the 
front gates. The two guards escorted me across a well-manicured lawn, past a row 
of geraniums and stubby bushes lined along the wall. An old hand-pump water well 
stood at the far end of the yard. I remembered how Kaka Homayouns house in 
Jalalabad had had a water well like that--the twins, Fazila and Karima, and I 
used to drop pebbles in it, listen for the plink. 

 

We climbed a few steps and entered a large, sparsely decorated house. We crossed 
the foyer--a large Afghan flag draped one of the walls--and the men took me 
upstairs to a room with twin mint green sofas and a big-screen TV in the far 
corner. A prayer rug showing a slightly oblong Mecca was nailed to one of the 
walls. The older of the two men motioned toward the sofa with the barrel of his 
weapon. I sat down. They left the room. 

 

I crossed my legs. Uncrossed them. Sat with my sweaty hands on my knees. Did 
that make me look nervous? I clasped them together, decided that was worse and 
just crossed my arms on my chest. Blood thudded in my temples. I felt utterly 
alone. Thoughts were flying around in my head, but I didnt want to think at 
all, because a sober part of me knew that what I had managed to get myself into 
was insanity. I was thousands of miles from my wife, sitting in a room that felt 
like a holding cell, waiting for a man I had seen murder two people that same 
day. It was insanity. Worse yet, it was irresponsible. There was a very 
realistic chance that I was going to render Soraya a biwa, a widow, at the age 
of thirty-six. This isnt you, Amir, part of me said. Youre gutless. Its how 
you were made. And thats not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that 
youve never lied to yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with 
cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering 
who he is... God help him. 

 

There was a coffee table by the sofa. The base was X-shaped, walnut-sized brass 
balls studding the ring where the metallic legs crossed. Id seen a table like 
that before. Where? And then it came to me: at the crowded tea shop in Peshawar, 
that night Id gone for a walk. On the table sat a bowl of red grapes. I plucked 
one and tossed it in my mouth. I had to preoccupy myself with something, 
anything, to silence the voice in my head. The grape was sweet. I popped another 
one in, unaware that it would be the last bit of solid food I would eat for a 
long time. 

 

The door opened and the two armed men returned, between them the tall Talib in 
white, still wearing his dark John Lennon glasses, looking like some broad-
shouldered, NewAge mystic guru. 

 

He took a seat across from me and lowered his hands on the armrests. For a long 
time, he said nothing. Just sat there, watching me, one hand drumming the 
upholstery, the other twirling turquoise blue prayer beads. He wore a black vest 
over the white shirt now, and a gold watch. I saw a splotch of dried blood on 
his left sleeve. I found it morbidly fascinating that he hadnt changed clothes 
after the executions earlier that day. 

 

Periodically, his free hand floated up and his thick fingers batted at something 
in the air. They made slow stroking motions, up and down, side to side, as if he 
were caressing an invisible pet. One of his sleeves retracted and I saw marks on 
his forearm--Id seen those same tracks on homeless people living in grimy 
alleys in San Francisco. 

 


His skin was much paler than the other two mens, almost sallow, and a crop of 
tiny sweat beads gleamed on his forehead just below the edge of his black 
turban. His beard, chest-length like the others, was lighter in color too. 

 

Salaam alaykum, he said. 

 

Salaam. 

 

You can do away with that now, you know, he said. 

 

Pardon? 

 

He turned his palm to one of the armed men and motioned. Rrrriiiip. Suddenly my 
cheeks were stinging and the guard was tossing my beard up and down in his hand, 
giggling. The Talib grinned. One of the better ones Ive seen in a while. But 
it really is so much better this way, I think. Dont you? He twirled his 
fingers, snapped them, fist opening and closing. So, _Inshallah_, you enjoyed 
the show today? 

 

Was that what it was? I said, rubbing my cheeks, hoping my voice didnt betray 
the explosion of terror I felt inside. 

 

Public justice is the greatest kind of show, my brother. Drama. Suspense. And, 
best of all, education en masse. He snapped his fingers. The younger of the two 
guards lit him a cigarette. The Talib laughed. Mumbled to himself. His hands 
were shaking and he almost dropped the cigarette. But you want a real show, you 
should have been with me in Mazar. August 1998, that was. 

 

Im sorry? 

 

We left them out for the dogs, you know. 

 

I saw what he was getting at. 

 

He stood up, paced around the sofa once, twice. Sat down again. He spoke 
rapidly. Door to door we went, calling for the men and the boys. Wed shoot 
them right there in front of their families. Let them see. Let them remember who 
they were, where they belonged. He was almost panting now. Sometimes, we broke 
down their doors and went inside their homes. And... Id... Id sweep the barrel 
of my machine gun around the room and fire and fire until the smoke blinded me. 
He leaned toward me, like a man about to share a great secret. You dont know 
the meaning of the word liberating until youve done that, stood in a roomful 
of targets, let the bullets fly, free of guilt and remorse, knowing you are 
virtuous, good, and decent. Knowing youre doing Gods work. Its breathtaking. 
He kissed the prayer beads, tilted his head. You remember that, Javid? 

 

Yes, Agha sahib, the younger of the guards replied. How could I forget? 

 

I had read about the Hazara massacre in Mazar-i-Sharif in the papers. It had 
happened just after the Taliban took over Mazar, one of the last cities to fall. 
I remembered Soraya handing me the article over breakfast, her face bloodless. 

 

Door-to-door. We only rested for food and prayer, the Talib said. He said it 
fondly, like a man telling of a great party hed attended. We left the bodies 
in the streets, and if their families tried to sneak out to drag them back into 
their homes, wed shoot them too. We left them in the streets for days. We left 


them for the dogs. Dog meat for dogs. He crushed his cigarette. Rubbed his eyes 
with tremulous hands. You come from America? 

 

Yes. 

 

How is that whore these days? 

 

I had a sudden urge to urinate. I prayed it would pass. Im looking for a boy. 

 

Isnt everyone? he said. The men with the Kalashnikovs laughed. Their teeth 
were stained green with naswar. 

 

I understand he is here, with you, I said. His name is Sohrab. 

 

Ill ask you something: What are you doing with that whore? Why arent you 
here, with your Muslim brothers, serving your country? 

 

Ive been away a long time, was all I could think of saying. My head felt so 
hot. I pressed my knees together, held my bladder. 

 

The Talib turned to the two men standing by the door. Thats an answer? he 
asked them. 

 

Nay, Agha sahib, they said in unison, smiling. 

 

He turned his eyes to me. Shrugged. Not an answer, they say. He took a drag of 
his cigarette. There are those in my circle who believe that abandoning watan 
when it needs you the most is the same as treason. I could have you arrested for 
treason, have you shot for it even. Does that frighten you? 

 

Im only here for the boy. 

 

Does that frighten you? 

 

Yes. 

 

It should, he said. He leaned back in the sofa. Crushed the cigarette. 

 

I thought about Soraya. It calmed me. I thought of her sickleshaped birthmark, 
the elegant curve of her neck, her luminous eyes. I thought of our wedding 
night, gazing at each others reflection in the mirror under the green veil, and 
how her cheeks blushed when I whispered that I loved her. I remembered the two 
of us dancing to an old Afghan song, round and round, everyone watching and 
clapping, the world a blur of flowers, dresses, tuxedos, and smiling faces. 

 

The Talib was saying something. 

 

Pardon? 

 

I said would you like to see him? Would you like to see my boy? His upper lip 
curled up in a sneer when he said those last two words. 

 

Yes. 

 

The guard left the room. I heard the creak of a door swinging open. Heard the 
guard say something in Pashtu, in a hard voice. Then, footfalls, and the jingle 
of bells with each step. It reminded me of the Monkey Man Hassan and I used to 


chase down in Shar e-Nau. We used to pay him a rupia of our allowance for a 
dance. The bell around his monkeys neck had made that same jingling sound. 

 

Then the door opened and the guard walked in. He carried a stereo--a boom box--
on his shoulder. Behind him, a boy dressed in a loose, sapphire blue pirhan-
tumban followed. 

 

The resemblance was breathtaking. Disorienting. Rahim Khans Polaroid hadnt 
done justice to it. 

 

The boy had his fathers round moon face, his pointy stub of a chin, his 
twisted, seashell ears, and the same slight frame. It was the Chinese doll face 
of my childhood, the face peering above fanned-out playing cards all those 
winter days, the face behind the mosquito net when we slept on the roof of my 
fathers house in the summer. His head was shaved, his eyes darkened with 
mascara, and his cheeks glowed with an unnatural red. When he stopped in the 
middle of the room, the bells strapped around his anklets stopped jingling. His 
eyes fell on me. Lingered. Then he looked away. Looked down at his naked feet. 

 

One of the guards pressed a button and Pashtu music filled the room. Tabla, 
harmonium, the whine of a dil-roba. I guessed music wasnt sinful as long as it 
played to Taliban ears. The three men began to clap. 

 

Wah wah! _Mashallah_! they cheered. 

 

Sohrab raised his arms and turned slowly. He stood on tiptoes, spun gracefully, 
dipped to his knees, straightened, and spun again. His little hands swiveled at 
the wrists, his fingers snapped, and his head swung side to side like a 
pendulum. His feet pounded the floor, the bells jingling in perfect harmony with 
the beat of the tabla. He kept his eyes closed. 

 

_Mashallah_! they cheered. Shahbas! Bravo! The two guards whistled and 
laughed. The Talib in white was tilting his head back and forth with the music, 
his mouth half-open in a leer. 

 

Sohrab danced in a circle, eyes closed, danced until the music stopped. The 
bells jingled one final time when he stomped his foot with the songs last note. 
He froze in midspin. 

 

Bia, bia, my boy, the Talib said, calling Sohrab to him. Sohrab went to him, 
head down, stood between his thighs. The Talib wrapped his arms around the boy. 
How talented he is, nay, my Hazara boy! he said. His hands slid down the 
childs back, then up, felt under his armpits. One of the guards elbowed the 
other and snickered. The Talib told them to leave us alone. 

 

Yes, Agha sahib, they said as they exited. 

 

The Talib spun the boy around so he faced me. He locked his arms around Sohrabs 
belly, rested his chin on the boys shoulder. Sohrab looked down at his feet, 
but kept stealing shy, furtive glances at me. The mans hand slid up and down 
the boys belly. Up and down, slowly, gently. 

Ive been wondering, the Talib said, his bloodshot eyes peering at me over 
Sohrabs shoulder. Whatever happened to old Babalu, anyway? 

 

The question hit me like a hammer between the eyes. I felt the color drain from 
my face. My legs went cold. Numb. 

 


He laughed. What did you think? That youd put on a fake beard and I wouldnt 
recognize you? Heres something Ill bet you never knew about me: I never forget 
a face. Not ever. He brushed his lips against Sohrabs ear, kept his eye on me. 
I heard your father died. Tsk-tsk. I always did want to take him on. Looks like 
Ill have to settle for his weakling of a son. Then he took off his sunglasses 
and locked his bloodshot blue eyes on mine. 

 

I tried to take a breath and couldnt. I tried to blink and couldnt. The moment 
felt surreal--no, not surreal, absurd--it had knocked the breath out of me, 
brought the world around me to a standstill. My face was burning. What was the 
old saying about the bad penny? My past was like that, always turning up. His 
name rose from the deep and I didnt want to say it, as if uttering it might 
conjure him. But he was already here, in the flesh, sitting less than ten feet 
from me, after all these years. His name escaped my lips: Assef. 

 

Ainir jan. 

 

What are you doing here? I said, knowing how utterly foolish the question 
sounded, yet unable to think of anything else to say. 

 

Me? Assef arched an eyebrow Im in my element. The question is what are you 
doing here? 

 

I already told you, I said. My voice was trembling. I wished it wouldnt do 
that, wished my flesh wasnt shrinking against my bones. 

 

The boy? 

 

Yes. 

 

Why? 

 

Ill pay you for him, I said. I can have money wired. 

 

Money? Assef said. He tittered. Have you ever heard of Rockingham? Western 
Australia, a slice of heaven. You should see it, miles and miles of beach. Green 
water, blue skies. My parents live there, in a beachfront villa. Theres a golf 
course behind the villa and a little lake. Father plays golf every day. Mother, 
she prefers tennis--Father says she has a wicked backhand. They own an Afghan 
restaurant and two jewelry stores; both businesses are doing spectacularly. He 
plucked a red grape. Put it, lovingly, in Sohrabs mouth. So if I need money, 
Ill have them wire it to me. He kissed the side of Sohrabs neck. The boy 
flinched a little, closed his eyes again. Besides, I didnt fight the Shorawi 
for money. Didnt join the Taliban for money either. Do you want to know why I 
joined them? 

 

My lips had gone dry. I licked them and found my tongue had dried too. 

 

Are you thirsty? Assef said, smirking. 

 

 

I think youre thirsty. 

 

Im fine, I said. The truth was, the room felt too hot suddenly--sweat was 
bursting from my pores, prickling my skin. And was this really happening? Was I 
really sitting across from Assef? 

 


As you wish, he said. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, how I joined the Taliban. 
Well, as you may remember, I wasnt much of a religious type. But one day I had 
an epiphany. I had it in jail. Do you want to hear? 

 

I said nothing. 

 

Good. Ill tell you, he said. I spent some time in jail, at Poleh-Charkhi, 
just after Babrak Karmal took over in 1980. I ended up there one night, when a 
group of Parc hami soldiers marched into our house and ordered my father and me 
at gun point to follow them. The bastards didnt give a reason, and they 
wouldnt answer my mothers questions. Not that it was a mys tery; everyone knew 
the communists had no class. They came from poor families with no name. The same 
dogs who werent fit to lick my shoes before the Shorawi came were now ordering 
me at gunpoint, Parchami flag on their lapels, making their little point about 
the fall of the bourgeoisie and acting like they were the ones with class. It 
was happening all over: Round up the rich, throw them in jail, make an example 
for the comrades. 

 

Anyway, we were crammed in groups of six in these tiny cells each the size of a 
refrigerator. Every night the commandant, a haif-Hazara, half-Uzbek thing who 
smelled like a rotting donkey, would have one of the prisoners dragged out of 
the cell and hed beat him until sweat poured from his fat face. Then hed light 
a cigarette, crack his joints, and leave. The next night, hed pick someone 
else. One night, he picked me. It couldnt have come at a worse time. Id been 
peeing blood for three days. Kidney stones. And if youve never had one, believe 
me when I say its the worst imaginable pain. My mother used to get them too, 
and I remember she told me once shed rather give birth than pass a kidney 
stone. Anyway, what could I do? They dragged me out and he started kick ing me. 
He had knee-high boots with steel toes that he wore every night for his little 
kicking game, and he used them on me. I was screaming and screaming and he kept 
kicking me and then, suddenly, he kicked me on the left kidney and the stone 
passed. Just like that! Oh, the relief! Assef laughed. And I yelled Allah-u 
akbar and he kicked me even harder and I started laughing. He got mad and hit 
me harder, and the harder he kicked me, the harder I laughed. They threw me back 
in the cell laughing. I kept laughing and laughing because suddenly I knew that 
had been a message from God: He was on my side. He wanted me to live for a 
reason. 

 

You know, I ran into that commandant on the battlefield a few years later--
funny how God works. I found him in a trench just outside Meymanah, bleeding 
from a piece of shrapnel in his chest. He was still wearing those same boots. I 
asked him if he remembered me. He said no. I told him the same thing I just told 
you, that I never forget a face. Then I shot him in the balls. Ive been on a 
mission since. 

 

What mission is that? I heard myself say. Stoning adulterers? Raping 
children? Flogging women for wearing high heels? Massacring Hazaras? All in the 
name of Islam? The words spilled suddenly and unexpectedly, came out before I 
could yank the leash. I wished I could take them back. Swallow them. But they 
were out. I had crossed a line, and whatever little hope I had of getting out 
alive had vanished with those words. 

 

A look of surprise passed across Assefs face, briefly, and disappeared. I see 
this may turn out to be enjoyable after all, he said, snickering. But there 
are things traitors like you dont understand. 

 

Like what? 


 

Assefs brow twitched. Like pride in your people, your customs, your language. 
Afghanistan is like a beautiful mansion littered with garbage, and someone has 
to take out the garbage. 

 

Thats what you were doing in Mazar, going door-to-door? Taking out the 
garbage? 

 

Precisely. 

 

In the west, they have an expression for that, I said. They call it ethnic 
cleansing. 

 

Do they? Assefs face brightened. Ethnic cleansing. I like it. I like the 
sound of it. 

 

All I want is the boy. 

 

Ethnic cleansing, Assef murmured, tasting the words. 

 

I want the boy, I said again. Sohrabs eyes flicked to me. They were slaughter 
sheeps eyes. They even had the mascara--I remembered how, on the day of Eid of 
qorban, the mullah in our backyard used to apply mascara to the eyes of the 
sheep and feed it a cube of sugar before slicing its throat. I thought I saw 
pleading in Sohrabs eyes. 

 

Tell me why, Assef said. He pinched Sohrabs earlobe between his teeth. Let 
go. Sweat beads rolled down his brow. 

 

Thats my business. 

 

What do you want to do with him? he said. Then a coy smile. Or to him. 

 

Thats disgusting, I said. 

 

How would you know? Have you tried it? 

 

I want to take him to a better place. 

 

Tell me why. 

 

Thats my business, I said. I didnt know what had emboldened me to be so 
curt, maybe the fact that I thought I was going to die anyway. 

 

I wonder, Assef said. I wonder why youve come all this way, Amir, come all 
this way for a Hazara? Why are you here? Why are you really here? 

 

I have my reasons, I said. 

 

Very well then, Assef said, sneering. He shoved Sohrab in the back, pushed him 
right into the table. Sohrabs hips struck the table, knocking it upside down 
and spilling the grapes. He fell on them, face first, and stained his shirt 
purple with grape juice. The 

tables legs, crossing through the ring of brass balls, were now pointing to the 
ceiling. 

 


Take him, then, Assef said. I helped Sohrab to his feet, swat ted the bits of 
crushed grape that had stuck to his pants like bar nacles to a pier. 

 

Go, take him, Assef said, pointing to the door. 

 

I took Sohrabs hand. It was small, the skin dry and calloused. His fingers 
moved, laced themselves with mine. I saw Sohrab in that Polaroid again, the way 
his arm was wrapped around Hassans leg, his head resting against his fathers 
hip. Theyd both been smiling. The bells jingled as we crossed the room. 

 

We made it as far as the door. 

 

Of course, Assef said behind us, I didnt say you could take him for free. 

 

I turned. What do you want? 

 

You have to earn him. 

 

What do you want? 

 

We have some unfinished business, you and I, Assef said. You remember, dont 
you? 

 

He neednt have worried. I would never forget the day after Daoud Khan overthrew 
the king. My entire adult life, whenever I heard Daoud Khans name, what I saw 
was Hassan with his sling shot pointed at Assefs face, Hassan saying that 
theyd have to start calling him One-Eyed Assef. instead of Assef Goshkhor. I 
remember how envious Id been of Hassans bravery. Assef had backed down, 
promised that in the end hed get us both. Hed kept that promise with Hassan. 
Now it was my turn. 

 

All right, I said, not knowing what else there was to say. I wasnt about to 
beg; that would have only sweetened the moment for him. 

 

Assef called the guards back into the room. I want you to listen to me, he 
said to them. In a moment, Im going to close the door. Then he and I are going 
to finish an old bit of business. No matter what you hear, dont come in! Do you 
hear me? Dont come in. 

 

The guards nodded. Looked from Assef to me. Yes, Agha sahib. 

 

When its all done, only one of us will walk out of this room alive, Assef 
said. If its him, then hes earned his freedom and you let him pass, do you 
understand? 

 

The older guard shifted on his feet. But Agha sahib-- 

 

If its him, you let him pass! Assef screamed. The two men flinched but nodded 
again. They turned to go. One of them reached for Sohrab. 

 

Let him stay, Assef said. He grinned. Let him watch. Lessons are good things 
for boys. 

 

The guards left. Assef put down his prayer beads. Reached in the breast pocket 
of his black vest. What he fished out of that pocket didnt surprise me one bit: 
stainless-steel brass knuckles. 

 


 

HE HAS GEL IN HIS HAIR and a Clark Gable mustache above his thick lips. The gel 
has soaked through the green paper surgical cap, made a dark stain the shape of 
Africa. I remember that about him. That, and the gold Allah chain around his 
dark neck. He is peering down at me, speaking rapidly in a language I dont 
understand, Urdu, I think. My eyes keep going to his Adams apple bob bing up 
and down, up and down, and I want to ask him how old he is anyway--he looks far 
too young, like an actor from some foreign soap opera--but all I can mutter is, 
I think I gave him a good fight. I think I gave him a good fight. 

 

I DONT KNOW if I gave Assef a good fight. I dont think I did. How could I 
have? That was the first time Id fought anyone. I had never so much as thrown a 
punch in my entire life. 

 

My memory of the fight with Assef is amazingly vivid in stretches: I remember 
Assef turning on the music before slipping on his brass knuckles. The prayer 
rug, the one with the oblong, woven Mecca, came loose from the wall at one point 
and landed on my head; the dust from it made me sneeze. I remember Assef shoving 
grapes in my face, his snarl all spit-shining teeth, his bloodshot eyes rolling. 
His turban fell at some point, let loose curls of shoulder-length blond hair. 

 

And the end, of course. That, I still see with perfect clarity. I always will. 

 

Mostly, I remember this: His brass knuckles flashing in the afternoon light; how 
cold they felt with the first few blows and how quickly they warmed with my 
blood. Getting thrown against the wall, a nail where a framed picture may have 
hung once jabbing at my back. Sohrab screaming. Tabla, harmonium, a dil-roba. 
Getting hurled against the wall. The knuckles shattering my jaw. Choking on my 
own teeth, swallowing them, thinking about all the countless hours Id spent 
flossing and brushing. Getting hurled against the wall. Lying on the floor, 
blood from my split upper lip staining the mauve carpet, pain ripping through my 
belly, and wondering when Id be able to breathe again. The sound of my ribs 
snapping like the tree branches Hassan and I used to break to swordfight like 
Sinbad in those old movies. Sohrab screaming. The side of my face slamming 
against the corner of the television stand. That snapping sound again, this time 
just under my left eye. Music. Sohrab screaming. Fingers grasping my hair, 
pulling my head back, the twinkle of stainless steel. Here they ome. That 
snapping sound yet again, now my nose. Biting down in pain, noticing how my 
teeth didnt align like they used to. Getting kicked. Sohrab screaming. 

 

I dont know at what point I started laughing, but I did. It hurt to laugh, hurt 
my jaws, my ribs, my throat. But I was laughing and laughing. And the harder I 
laughed, the harder he kicked me, punched me, scratched me. 

 

WHATS SO FUNNY? Assef kept roaring with each blow. His spittle landed in my 
eye. Sohrab screamed. 

 

WHATS SO FUNNY? Assef bellowed. Another rib snapped, this time left lower. 
What was so funny was that, for the first time since the winter of 1975, I felt 
at peace. I laughed because I saw that, in some hidden nook in a corner of my 
mind, Id even been looking forward to this. I remembered the day on the hill I 
had pelted Hassan with pomegranates and tried to provoke him. Hed just stood 
there, doing nothing, red juice soaking through his shirt like blood. Then hed 
taken the pomegranate from my hand, crushed it against his forehead. Are you 
satisfied now? hed hissed. Do you feel better? I hadnt been happy and I hadnt 
felt better, not at all. But I did now. My body was broken--just how badly I 
wouldnt find out until later--but I felt healed. Healed at last. I laughed. 


 

Then the end. That, Ill take to my grave: 

 

I was on the ground laughing, Assef straddling my chest, his face a mask of 
lunacy, framed by snarls of his hair swaying inches from my face. His free hand 
was locked around my throat. The other, the one with the brass knuckles, cocked 
above his shoulder. He raised his fist higher, raised it for another blow. 

 

Then:Bas.A thin voice. 

 

We both looked. 

 

Please, no more. 

 

I remembered something the orphanage director had said when hed opened the door 
to me and Farid. What had been his name? Zaman? Hes inseparable from that 
thing, he had said. He tucks it in the waist of his pants everywhere he goes. 

 

No more. 

 

Twin trails of black mascara, mixed with tears, had rolled down his cheeks, 
smeared the rouge. His lower lip trembled. Mucus seeped from his nose. Bas, he 
croaked. 

 

His hand was cocked above his shoulder, holding the cup of the slingshot at the 
end of the elastic band which was pulled all the way back. There was something 
in the cup, something shiny and yellow. I blinked the blood from my eyes and saw 
it was one of the brass balls from the ring in the table base. Sohrab had the 
slingshot pointed to Assefs face. 

 

No more, Agha. Please, he said, his voice husky and trembling. Stop hurting 
him. 

 

Assefs mouth moved wordlessly. He began to say something, stopped. What do you 
think youre you doing? he finally said. 

 

Please stop, Sohrab said, fresh tears pooling in his green eyes, mixing with 
mascara. 

 

Put it down, Hazara, Assef hissed. Put it down or what Im doing to him will 
be a gentle ear twisting compared to what Ill do to you. 

 

The tears broke free. Sohrab shook his head. Please, Agha, he said. Stop. 

 

Put it down. 

 

Dont hurt him anymore. 

 

Put it down. 

 

Please. 

 

PUT IT DOWN! 

 

PUT IT DOWN! Assef let go of my throat. Lunged at Sohrab. 

 


The slingshot made a thwiiiiit sound when Sohrab released the cup. Then Assef 
was screaming. He put his hand where his left eye had been just a moment ago. 
Blood oozed between his fingers. Blood and something else, something white and 
gel-like. Thats called vitreous fluid, I thought with clarity. Ive read that 
somewhere. Vitreous fluid. 

 

Assef rolled on the carpet. Rolled side to side, shrieking, his hand still 
cupped over the bloody socket. 

 

Lets go! Sohrab said. He took my hand. Helped me to my feet. Every inch of my 
battered body wailed with pain. Behind us, Assef kept shrieking. 

 

OUT! GET IT OUT! he screamed. 

 

Teetering, I opened the door. The guards eyes widened when they saw me and I 
wondered what I looked like. My stomach hurt with each breath. One of the guards 
said something in Pashtu and then they blew past us, running into the room where 
Assef was still screaming. OUT! 

 

Bia, Sohrab said, pulling my hand. Lets go! 

 

I stumbled down the hallway, Sohrabs little hand in mine. I took a final look 
over my shoulder. The guards were huddled over Assef, doing something to his 
face. Then I understood: The brass ball was still stuck in his empty eye socket. 

 

The whole world rocking up and down, swooping side to side, I hobbled down the 
steps, leaning on Sohrab. From above, Assefs screams went on and on, the cries 
of a wounded animal. We made it outside, into daylight, my arm around Sohrabs 
shoulder, and I saw Farid running toward us. 

 

Bismillah! Bismillah! he said, eyes bulging at the sight of me. 

 

He slung my arm around his shoulder and lifted me. Carried me to the truck, 
running. I think I screamed. I watched the way his sandals pounded the pavement, 
slapped his black, calloused heels. It hurt to breathe. Then I was looking up at 
the roof of the Land Cruiser, in the backseat, the upholstery beige and ripped, 
listen ing to the ding-ding-ding signaling an open door. Running foot steps 
around the truck. Farid and Sohrab exchanging quick words. The trucks doors 
slammed shut and the engine roared to life. The car jerked forward and I felt a 
tiny hand on my forehead. I heard voices on the street, some shouting, and saw 
trees blurring past in the window Sohrab was sobbing. Farid was still repeating, 
Bis millah! Bismillak! 

 

It was about then that I passed out. 

 

TWENTY-THREE 

 

Faces poke through the haze, linger, fade away. They peer down, ask me 
questions. They all ask questions. Do I know who I am? Do I hurt anywhere? I 
know who I am and I hurt everywhere. I want to tell them this but talking hurts. 
I know this because some time ago, maybe a year ago, maybe two, maybe ten, I 
tried to talk to a child with rouge on his cheeks and eyes smeared black. The 
child. Yes, I see him now. We are in a car of sorts, the child and I, and I 
dont think Sorayas driving because Soraya never drives this fast. I want to 
say something to this child--it seems very impor tant that I do. But I dont 
remember what I want to say, or why it might have been important. Maybe I want 


to tell him to stop cry ing, that everything will be all right now. Maybe not. 
For some reason I cant think of, I want to thank the child. 

 

Faces. Theyre all wearing green hats. They slip in and out of view They talk 
rapidly, use words I dont understand. I hear other voices, other noises, beeps 
and alarms. And always more faces. Peering down. I dont remember any of them, 
except for the one with the gel in his hair and the Clark Gable mustache, the 
one with the Africa stain on his cap. Mister Soap Opera Star. Thats funny. I 
want to laugh now. But laughing hurts too. 

 

I fade out. 

 

 

SHE SAYS HER NAME IS AISHA, like the prophets wife. Her graying hair is 
parted in the middle and tied in a ponytail, her nose pierced with a stud shaped 
like the sun. She wears bifocals that make her eyes bug out. She wears green too 
and her hands are soft. She sees me looking at her and smiles. Says something in 
English. Something is jabbing at the side of my chest. 

 

I fade out. 

 

 

A MAN IS STANDING at my bedside. I know him. He is dark and lanky, has a long 
beard. He wears a hat--what are those hats called? Pakols? Wears it tilted to 
one side like a famous person whose name escapes me now. I know this man. He 
drove me somewhere a few years ago. I know him. There is something wrong with my 
mouth. I hear a bubbling sound. 

 

I fade out. 

 

 

MY RIGHT ARM BURNS. The woman with the bifocals and sun-shaped stud is hunched 
over my arm, attaching a clear plastic tubing to it. She says its the 
Potassium. It stings like a bee, no? she says. It does. Whats her name? 
Something to do with a prophet. I know her too from a few years ago. She used to 
wear her hair in a ponytail. Now its pulled back, tied in a bun. Soraya 

wore her hair like that the first time we spoke. When was that? Last week? 

 

Aisha! Yes. 

 

There is something wrong with my mouth. And that thing jab bing at my chest. 

 

I fade out. 

 

WE ARE IN THE SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS of Baluchistan and Baba is wrestling the black 
bear. He is the Baba of my child hood, _Toophan agha_, the towering specimen of 
Pashtun might, not the withered man under the blankets, the man with the sunken 
cheeks and hollow eyes. They roll over a patch of green grass, man and beast, 
Babas curly brown hair flying. The bear roars, or maybe its Baba. Spittle and 
blood fly; claw and hand swipe. They fall to the ground with a loud thud and 
Baba is sitting on the bears chest, his fingers digging in its snout. He looks 
up at me and I see. Hes me. I am wrestling the bear. 

 

I wake up. The lanky dark man is back at my bedside. His name is Farid, I 
remember now. And with him is the child from the car. His face reminds me of the 
sound of bells. I am thirsty. 

 


I fade out. 

 

I keep fading in and out. 

 

THE NAME OF THE MAN with the Clark Gable mustache turned out to be Dr. Faruqi. 
He wasnt a soap opera star at all, but a head-and-neck surgeon, though I kept 
thinking of him as some one named Armand in some steamy soap set on a tropical 
island. 

 

Where am I? I wanted to ask. But my mouth wouldnt open. I frowned. Grunted. 
Armand smiled; his teeth were blinding white. 

 

Not yet, Amir, he said, but soon. When the wires are out. He spoke English 
with a thick, rolling Urdu accent. 

 

Wires? 

 

Armand crossed his arms; he had hairy forearms and wore a gold wedding band. 
You must be wondering where you are, what happened to you. Thats perfectly 
normal, the postsurgical state is always disorienting. So Ill tell you what I 
know. 

 

I wanted to ask him about the wires. Postsurgical? Where was Aisha? I wanted her 
to smile at me, wanted her soft hands in mine. 

 

Armand frowned, cocked one eyebrow in a slightly selfimportant way. You are in 
a hospital in Peshawar. Youve been here two days. You have suffered some very 
significant injuries, Amir, I should tell you. I would say youre very lucky to 
be alive, my friend. He swayed his index finger back and forth like a pendu lum 
when he said this. Your spleen had ruptured, probably--and fortunately for you-
-a delayed rupture, because you had signs of early hemorrhage into your 
abdominal cavity My colleagues from the general surgery unit had to perform an 
emergency splenec tomy. If it had ruptured earlier, you would have bled to 
death. He patted me on the arm, the one with the IV, and smiled. You also 
suffered seven broken ribs. One of them caused a pneumothorax. 

 

I frowned. Tried to open my mouth. Remembered about the wires. 

 

That means a punctured lung, Armand explained. He tugged at a clear plastic 
tubing on my left side. I felt the jabbing again in my chest. We sealed the 
leak with this chest tube. I followed the tube poking through bandages on my 
chest to a container halffilled with columns of water. The bubbling sound came 
from there. 

 

You had also suffered various lacerations. That means cuts. I wanted to tell 
him I knew what the word meant; I was a writer. I went to open my mouth. Forgot 
about the wires again. 

 

The worst laceration was on your upper lip, Armand said. The impact had cut 
your upper lip in two, clean down the mid dle. But not to worry, the plastics 
guys sewed it back together and they think you will have an excellent result, 
though there will be a scar. That is unavoidable. 

 

There was also an orbital fracture on the left side; thats the eye socket 
bone, and we had to fix that too. The wires in your jaws will come out in about 
six weeks, Armand said. Until then its liq uids and shakes. You will lose 
some weight and you will be talking like Al Pacino from the first Godfather 


movie for a little while. He laughed. But you have a job to do today. Do you 
know what it is? 

 

I shook my head. 

 

Your job today is to pass gas. You do that and we can start feeding you 
liquids. No fart, no food. He laughed again. 

 

Later, after Aisha changed the IV tubing and raised the head of the bed like Id 
asked, I thought about what had happened to me. Ruptured spleen. Broken teeth. 
Punctured lung. Busted eye socket. But as I watched a pigeon peck at a bread 
crumb on the windowsill, I kept thinking of something else Armand/Dr. Faruqi had 
said: The impact had cut your upper lip in two, he had said, clean down the 
middle. Clean down the middle. Like a harelip. 

 

 

FARID AND SOHRAB came to visit the next day. Do you know who we are today? Do 
you remember? Farid said, only half-jokingly. I nodded. 

 

Al hamdullellah! he said, beaming. No more talking non sense. 

 

Thank you, Farid, I said through jaws wired shut. Armand was right--I did 
sound like Al Pacino from The Godfather. And my tongue surprised me every time 
it poked in one of the empty spaces left by the teeth I had swallowed. I mean, 
thank you. For everything. 

 

He waved a hand, blushed a little. Bas, its not worthy of thanks, he said. I 
turned to Sohrab. He was wearing a new outfit, light brown pirhan-tumban that 
looked a bit big for him, and a black skullcap. He was looking down at his feet, 
toying with the IV line coiled on the bed. 

 

We were never properly introduced, I said. I offered him my hand. I am Amir. 

 

He looked at my hand, then to me. You are the Amir agha Father told me about? 
he said. 

 

Yes. I remembered the words from Hassans letter. I have told much about you 
to Farzana jan and Sohrab, about us growing up together and playing games and 
running in the streets. They laugh at the stories of all the mischief you and I 
used to cause! I owe you thanks too, Sohrab jan, I said. You saved my life. 

 

He didnt say anything. I dropped my hand when he didnt take it. I like your 
new clothes, I mumbled. 

 

Theyre my sons, Farid said. He has outgrown them. They fit Sohrab pretty 
well, I would say. Sohrab could stay with him, he said, until we found a place 
for him. We dont have a lot of room, but what can I do? I cant leave him to 
the streets. Besides, my children have taken a liking to him. Ha, Sohrab? But 
the boy just kept looking down, twirling the line with his finger. 

 

Ive been meaning to ask, Farid said, a little hesitantly. What happened in 
that house? What happened between you and the Talib? 

 

Lets just say we both got what we deserved, I said. 

 


Farid nodded, didnt push it. It occurred to me that somewhere between the time 
we had left Peshawar for Afghanistan and now, we had become friends. Ive been 
meaning to ask something too. 

 

What? 

 

I didnt want to ask. I was afraid of the answer. Rahim Khan, I said. 

 

Hes gone. 

 

My heart skipped. Is he-- 

 

No, just... gone. He handed me a folded piece of paper and a small key. The 
landlord gave me this when I went looking for him. He said Rahim Khan left the 
day after we did. 

 

Where did he go? 

 

Farid shrugged. The landlord didnt know He said Rahim Khan left the letter and 
the key for you and took his leave. He checked his watch. Id better go. Bia, 
Sohrab. 

 

Could you leave him here for a while? I said. Pick him up later? I turned to 
Sohrab. Do you want to stay here with me for a little while? 

 

He shrugged and said nothing. 

 

Of course, Farid said. Ill pick him up just before evening _namaz_. 

 

 

THERE WERE THREE OTHER PATIENTS in my room. Two older men, one with a cast on 
his leg, the other wheezing with asthma, and a young man of fifteen or sixteen 
whod had appendix surgery. The old guy in the cast stared at us without 
blinking, his eyes switching from me to the Hazara boy sitting on a stool. My 
roommates families--old women in bright shalwar-kameezes, children, men wearing 
skullcaps--shuffled noisily in and out of the room. They brought with them 
pakoras, _naan_, sa,nosas, biryani. Sometimes people just wandered into the 
room, like the tall, bearded man who walked in just before Farid and Sohrab 
arrived. He wore a brown blanket wrapped around him. Aisha asked him something 
in Urdu. He paid her no attention and scanned the room with his eyes. I thought 
he looked at me a little longer than necessary. When the nurse spoke to him 
again, he just spun around and left. 

 

How are you? I asked Sohrab. He shrugged, looked at his hands. 

 

Are you hungry? That lady there gave me a plate of biryani, but I cant eat 
it, I said. I didnt know what else to say to him. You want it? 

 

He shook his head. 

 

Do you want to talk? 

 

He shook his head again. 

 

We sat there like that for a while, silent, me propped up in bed, two pillows 
behind my back, Sohrab on the three-legged stool next to the bed. I fell asleep 
at some point, and, when I woke up, daylight had dimmed a bit, the shadows had 


stretched, and Sohrab was still sitting next to me. He was still looking down at 
his hands. 

 

 

THAT NIGHT, after Farid picked up Sohrab, I unfolded Rahim Khans letter. I had 
delayed reading it as long as possible. It read: 

 

Amirjan, _Inshallah_, you have reached this letter safely. I pray that I have 
not put you in harms way and that Afghanistan has not been too unkind to you. 
You have been in my prayers since the day you left. You were right all those 
years to suspect that I knew. I did know. Hassan told me shortly after it 
happened. What you did was wrong, Amir jan, but do not forget that you were a 
boy when it happened. A troubled little boy. You were too hard on yourself then, 
and you still are--I saw it in your eyes in Peshawar. But I hope you will heed 
this: A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer. I hope your 
suffering comes to an end with this journey to Afghanistan. 

 

Amir jan, I am ashamed for the lies we told you all those years. You were right 
to be angry in Peshawar. You had a right to know. So did Hassan. I know it 
doesnt absolve anyone of anything, but the Kabul we lived in in those days was 
a strange world, one in which some things mattered more than the truth. 

 

Amir jan, I know how hard your father was on you when you were growing up. I saw 
how you suffered and yearned for his affections, and my heart bled for you. But 
your father was a man torn between two halves, Amir jan: 

 

you and Hassan. He loved you both, but he could not love Hassan the way he 
longed to, openly, and as a father. So he took it out on you instead--Amir, the 
socially legitimate half, the half that represented the riches he had inherited 
and the sin-with-impunity privileges that came with them. When he saw you, he 
saw himself. And his guilt. You are still angry and I realize it is far too 
early to expect you to accept this, but maybe someday you will see that when 
your father was hard on you, he was also being hard on himself. Your father, 
like you, was a tortured soul, Amir jan. 

 

I cannot describe to you the depth and blackness of the sorrow that came over me 
when I learned of his passing. I loved him because he was my friend, but also 
because he was a good man, maybe even a great man. And this is what I want you 
to understand, that good, real good, was born out of your fathers remorse. 
Sometimes, I think everything he did, feeding the poor on the streets, building 
the orphanage, giving money to friends in need, it was all his way of redeeming 
himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt 
leads to good. 

 

I know that in the end, God will forgive. He will forgive your father, me, and 
you too. I hope you can do the same. Forgive your father if you can. Forgive me 
if you wish. But, most important, forgive yourself. 

 

I have left you some money, most of what I have left, in fact. I think you may 
have some expenses when you return here, and the money should be enough to cover 
them. There is a bank in Peshawar; Farid knows the location. The money is in a 
safe-deposit box. I have given you the key. 

 

As for me, it is time to go. I have little time left and I wish to spend it 
alone. Please do not look for me. That is my final request of you. 

 

I leave you in the hands of God. 


 

Your friend always, 

 

Rahim 

 

 

I dragged the hospital gown sleeve across my eyes. I folded the letter and put 
it under my mattress. 

 

Amir, the socially legitimate half, the half that represented the riches he had 
inherited and the sin-with-impunity privileges that came with them. Maybe that 
was why Baba and I had been on such better terms in the U.S., I wondered. 
Selling junk for petty cash, our menial jobs, our grimy apartment--the American 
version of a hut; maybe in America, when Baba looked at me, he saw a little bit 
of Hassan. 

 

Your father, like you, was a tortured soul, Rahim Khan had written. Maybe so. We 
had both sinned and betrayed. But Baba had found a way to create good out of his 
remorse. What had I done, other than take my guilt out on the very same people I 
had betrayed, and then try to forget it all? What had I done, other than become 
an insomniac? 

 

What had I ever done to right things? 

 

When the nurse--not Aisha but a red-haired woman whose name escapes me--walked 
in with a syringe in hand and asked me if I needed a morphine injection, I said 
yes. 

 

 

THEY REMOVED THE CHEST TUBE early the next morning, and Armand gave the staff 
the go-ahead to let me sip apple juice. I asked Aisha for a mirror when she 
placed the cup of juice on the dresser next to my bed. She lifted her bifocals 
to her forehead as she pulled the curtain open and let the morning sun flood the 
room. Remember, now, she said over her shoulder, it will look better in a few 
days. My son-in-law was in a moped accident last year. His handsome face was 
dragged on the asphalt and became purple like an eggplant. Now he is beautiful 
again, like a Hollywood movie star. 

 

Despite her reassurances, looking in the mirror and seeing the thing that 
insisted it was my face left me a little breathless. It looked like someone had 
stuck an air pump nozzle under my skin and had pumped away. My eyes were puffy 
and blue. The worst of it was my mouth, a grotesque blob of purple and red, all 
bruise and stitches. I tried to smile and a bolt of pain ripped through my lips. 
I wouldnt be doing that for a while. There were stitches 

across my left cheek, just under the chin, on the forehead just below the 
hairline. 

 

The old guy with the leg cast said something in Urdu. I gave him a shrug and 
shook my head. He pointed to his face, patted it, and grinned a wide, toothless 
grin. Very good, he said in English. Ins hallah. 

 

Thank you, I whispered. 

 

Farid and Sohrab came in just as I put the mirror away. Sohrab took his seat on 
the stool, rested his head on the beds side rail. 

 

You know, the sooner we get you out of here the better, Farid said. 


Dr. Faruqi says--- 

 

I dont mean the hospital. I mean Peshawar. 

 

Why? 

 

I dont think youll be safe here for long, Farid said. He lowered his voice. 
The Taliban have friends here. They will start looking for you. 

 

I think they already may have, I murmured. I thought suddenly of the bearded 
man whod wandered into the room and just stood there staring at me. 

 

Farid leaned in. As soon as you can walk, Ill take you to Islamabad. Not 
entirely safe there either, no place in Pakistan is, but its better than here. 
At least it will buy you some time. 

 

Farid Jan, this cant be safe for you either. Maybe you shouldnt be seen with 
me. You have a family to take care of. 

 

Farid made a waving gesture. My boys are young, but they are very shrewd. They 
know how to take care of their mothers and sisters. He smiled. Besides, I 
didnt say Id do it for free. 

 

I wouldnt let you if you offered, I said. I forgot I couldnt 

smile and tried. A tiny streak of blood trickled down my chin. Can I ask you 
for one more favor? 

 

For you a thousand times over, Farid said. 

 

And, just like that, I was crying. I hitched gusts of air, tears gushing down my 
cheeks, stinging the raw flesh of my lips. 

 

Whats the matter? Farid said, alarmed. 

 

I buried my face in one hand and held up the other. I knew the whole room was 
watching me. After, I felt tired, hollow. Im sorry, I said. Sohrab was 
looking at me with a frown creasing his brow. 

 

When I could talk again, I told Farid what I needed. Rahim Khan said they live 
here in Peshawar. 

 

Maybe you should write down their names, Farid said, eyeing me cautiously, as 
if wondering what might set me off next. I scribbled their names on a scrap of 
paper towel. John and Betty Caldwell. 

 

Farid pocketed the folded piece of paper. I will look for them as soon as I 
can, he said. He turned to Sohrab. As for you, Ill pick you up this evening. 
Dont tire Amir agha too much. 

 

But Sohrab had wandered to the window, where a half-dozen pigeons strutted back 
and forth on the sill, pecking at wood and scraps of old bread. 

 

 

IN THE MIDDLE DRAWER of the dresser beside my bed, I had found an old _National 
Geographic_ magazine, a chewed-up pencil, a comb with missing teeth, and what I 
was reaching for now, sweat pouring down my face from the effort: a deck of 
cards. I had counted them earlier and, surprisingly, found the deck complete. I 


asked Sohrab if he wanted to play. I didnt expect him to answer, let alone 
play. Hed been quiet since we had fled Kabul. 

But he turned from the window and said, The only game I know is panjpar. 

 

I feel sorry for you already, because I am a grand master at panjpar. World 
renowned. 

 

He took his seat on the stool next to me. I dealt him his five cards. When your 
father and I were your age, we used to play this game. Especially in the winter, 
when it snowed and we couldnt go outside. We used to play until the sun went 
down. 

 

He played me a card and picked one up from the pile. I stole looks at him as he 
pondered his cards. He was his father in so many ways: the way he fanned out his 
cards with both hands, the way he squinted while reading them, the way he rarely 
looked a person in the eye. 

 

We played in silence. I won the first game, let him win the next one, and lost 
the next five fair and square. Youre as good as your father, maybe even 
better, I said, after my last loss. I used to beat him sometimes, but I think 
he let me win. I paused before saying, Your father and I were nursed by the 
same woman. 

 

I know. 

 

What... what did he tell you about us? 

 

That you were the best friend he ever had, he said. 

 

I twirled the jack of diamonds in my fingers, flipped it back and forth. I 
wasnt such a good friend, Im afraid, I said. But Id like to be your friend. 
I think I could be a good friend to you. Would that be all right? Would you like 
that? I put my hand on his arm, gingerly, but he flinched. He dropped his cards 
and pushed away on the stool. He walked back to the window. The sky was awash 
with streaks of red and purple as the sun set on Peshawar. From the street below 
came a succession of honks and the braying of a donkey, the whistle of a 
policeman. Sohrab stood in that crimson light, forehead pressed to the glass, 
fists buried in his armpits. 

 

 

AISHA HAD A MALE ASSISTANT help me take my first steps that night. I only walked 
around the room once, one hand clutching the wheeled IV stand, the other 
clasping the assistants fore arm. It took me ten minutes to make it back to 
bed, and, by then, the incision on my stomach throbbed and Id broken out in a 
drenching sweat. I lay in bed, gasping, my heart hammering in my ears, thinking 
how much I missed my wife. 

 

Sohrab and I played panjpar most of the next day, again in silence. And the day 
after that. We hardly spoke, just played panjpar, me propped in bed, he on the 
three-legged stool, our routine broken only by my taking a walk around the room, 
or going to the bathroom down the hall. I had a dream later that night. I 
dreamed Assef was standing in the doorway of my hospital room, brass ball still 
in his eye socket. Were the same, you and I, he was saying. You nursed with 
him, but youre my twin. 

 

 

I TOLD ARMAND early that next day that I was leaving. 


 

Its still early for discharge, Armand protested. He wasnt dressed in 
surgical scrubs that day, instead in a button-down navy blue suit and yellow 
tie. The gel was back in the hair. You are still in intravenous antibiotics 
and-- 

 

I have to go, I said. I appreciate everything youve done for me, all of you. 
Really. But I have to leave. 

 

Where will you go? Armand said. 

 

Id rather not say. 

 

You can hardly walk. 

 

I can walk to the end of the hall and back, I said. Ill b fine. The plan 
was this: Leave the hospital. Get the money fror the safe-deposit box and pay my 
medical bills. Drive to the orphanage and drop Sohrab off with John and Betty 
Caldwell Then get a ride to Islamabad and change travel plans. Give mysel a few 
more days to get better. Fly home. 

 

That was the plan, anyway. Until Farid and Sohrab arrived tha morning. Your 
friends, this John and Betty Caldwell, they aren in Peshawar, Farid said. 

 

It had taken me ten minutes Just to slip into my pirhan tumban. My chest, where 
theyd cut me to insert the chest tube hurt when I raised my arm, and my stomach 
throbbed every time I leaned over. I was drawing ragged breaths just from the 
effort of packing a few of my belongings into a brown paper bag. But Id managed 
to get ready and was sitting on the edge of the bed when Farid came in with the 
news. Sohrab sat on the bed next to me. 

 

Where did they go? I asked. 

 

Farid shook his head. You dont understand-- 

 

Because Rahim Khan said-- 

 

I went to the U.S. consulate, Farid said, picking up my bag. There never was 
a John and Betty Caldwell in Peshawar. According to the people at the consulate, 
they never existed. Not here in Peshawar, anyhow. 

 

Next to me, Sohrab was flipping through the pages of the old National 
Geographic. 

 

 

WE GOT THE MONEY from the bank. The manager, a paunchy man with sweat patches 
under his arms, kept flashing smiles and telling me that no one in the bank had 
touched the money. 

 

Absolutely nobody, he said gravely, swinging his index finger the same way 
Armand had. 

 

Driving through Peshawar with so much money in a paper bag was a slightly 
frightening experience. Plus, I suspected every bearded man who stared at me to 
be a Talib killer, sent by Assef. Two things compounded my fears: There are a 
lot of bearded men in Peshawar, and everybody stares. 

 


What do we do with him? Farid said, walking me slowly from the hospital 
accounting office back to the car. Sohrab was in the backseat of the Land 
Cruiser, looking at traffic through the rolled-down window, chin resting on his 
palms. 

 

He cant stay in Peshawar, I said, panting. 

 

Nay, Amir agha, he cant, Farid said. Hed read the question in my words. Im 
sorry. I wish I-- 

 

Thats all right, Farid, I said. I managed a tired smile. You have mouths to 
feed. A dog was standing next to the truck now, propped on its rear legs, paws 
on the trucks door, tail wagging. Sohrab was petting the dog. I guess he goes 
to Islamabad for now, I said. 

 

 

I SLEPT THROUGH almost the entire four-hour ride to Islamabad. I dreamed a lot, 
and most of it I only remember as a hodge podge of images, snippets of visual 
memory flashing in my head like cards in a Rolodex: Baba marinating lamb for my 
thirteenth birthday party. Soraya and I making love for the first time, the sun 
rising in the east, our ears still ringing from the wedding music, her henna-
painted hands laced in mine. The time Baba had taken Hassan and me to a 
strawberry field in Jalalabad--the owner had told us we could eat as much as we 
wanted to as long as we bought at least four kilos--and how wed both ended up 
with bellyaches. How dark, almost black, Hassans blood had looked on the snow, 
dropping from the seat of his pants. Blood is a powerful thing, bachem. Khala 
Jamila patting Sorayas knee and saying, God knows best, maybe it wasnt meant 
to be. Sleeping on the roof of my fathers house. Baba saying that the only sin 
that mattered was theft. When you tell a lie, you steal a mans right to the 
truth. Rahim Khan on the phone, telling me there was a way to be good again. A 
way to be good again... 

 

TWENTY-FOUR 

 

If Peshawar was the city that reminded me of what Kabul used to be, then 
Islamabad was the city Kabul could have become someday. The streets were wider 
than Peshawars, cleaner, and lined with rows of hibiscus and flame trees. The 
bazaars were more organized and not nearly as clogged with rickshaws and 
pedestrians. The architecture was more elegant too, more modern, and I saw parks 
where roses and jasmine bloomed in the shadows of trees. 

 

Farid found a small hotel on a side street running along the foot of the 
Margalla Hills. We passed the famous Shah Faisal Mosque on the way there, 
reputedly the biggest mosque in the world, with its giant concrete girders and 
soaring minarets. Sohrab perked up at the sight of the mosque, leaned out of the 
window and looked at it until Farid turned a corner. 

 

 

THE HOTEL ROOM was a vast improvement over the one in Kabul where Farid and I 
had stayed. The sheets were clean, the carpet vacuumed, and the bathroom 
spotless. There was shampoo, soap, razors for shaving, a bathtub, and towels 
that smelled like lemon. And no bloodstains on the walls. One other thing: a 
television set sat on the dresser across from the two single beds. 

 

Look! I said to Sohrab. I turned it on manually--no remote--and turned the 
dial. I found a childrens show with two fluffy sheep puppets singing in Urdu. 
Sohrab sat on one of the beds and drew his knees to his chest. Images from the 


TV reflected in his green eyes as he watched, stone-faced, rocking back and 
forth. I remembered the time Id promised Hassan Id buy his family a color TV 
when we both grew up. 

 

Ill get going, Amir agha, Farid said. 

 

Stay the night, I said. Its a long drive. Leave tomorrow. 

 

Tashakor, he said. But I want to get back tonight. I miss my children. On 
his way out of the room, he paused in the doorway. Good-bye, Sohrab jan, he 
said. He waited for a reply, but Sohrab paid him no attention. Just rocked back 
and forth, his face lit by the silver glow of the images flickering across the 
screen. 

 

Outside, I gave him an envelope. When he tore it, his mouth opened. 

 

I didnt know how to thank you, I said. Youve done so much for me. 

 

How much is in here? Farid said, slightly dazed. 

 

A little over two thousand dollars. 

 

Two thou-- he began. His lower lip was quivering a little. Later, when he 
pulled away from the curb, he honked twice and waved. I waved back. I never saw 
him again. 

 

I returned to the hotel room and found Sohrab lying on the bed, curled up in a 
big C. His eyes were closed but I couldnt tell if he was sleeping. He had shut 
off the television. I sat on my bed and grimaced with pain, wiped the cool sweat 
off my brow. I wondered how much longer it would hurt to get up, sit down, roll 
over in bed. I wondered when Id be able to eat solid food. I wondered what Id 
do with the wounded little boy lying on the bed, though a part of me already 
knew. 

 

There was a carafe of water on the dresser. I poured a glass and took two of 
Armands pain pills. The water was warm and bitter. I pulled the curtains, eased 
myself back on the bed, and lay down. I thought my chest would rip open. When 
the pain dropped a notch and I could breathe again, I pulled the blanket to my 
chest and waited for Armands pills to work. 

 

 

WHEN I WOKE UP, the room was darker. The slice of sky peeking between the 
curtains was the purple of twilight turning into night. The sheets were soaked 
and my head pounded. Id been dreaming again, but I couldnt remember what it 
had been about. 

 

My heart gave a sick lurch when I looked to Sohrabs bed and found it empty I 
called his name. The sound of my voice startled me. It was disorienting, sitting 
in a dark hotel room, thousands of miles from home, my body broken, calling the 
name of a boy Id only met a few days ago. I called his name again and heard 
nothing. I struggled out of bed, checked the bathroom, looked in the narrow 
hallway outside the room. He was gone. 

 

I locked the door and hobbled to the managers office in the lobby, one hand 
clutching the rail along the walkway for support. There was a fake, dusty palm 
tree in the corner of the lobby and flying pink flamingos on the wallpaper. I 
found the hotel manager reading a newspaper behind the Formica-topped check-in 


counter. I described Sohrab to him, asked if hed seen him. He put down his 
paper and took off his reading glasses. He had greasy hair and a square-shaped 
little mustache speckled with gray. He smelled vaguely of some tropical fruit I 
couldnt quite recognize. 

 

Boys, they like to run around, he said, sighing. I have three of them. All 
day they are running around, troubling their mother. He fanned his face with 
the newspaper, staring at my jaws. 

 

I dont think hes out running around, I said. And were not from here. Im 
afraid he might get lost. 

 

He bobbed his head from side to side. Then you should have kept an eye on the 
boy, mister. 

 

I know, I said. But I fell asleep and when I woke up, he was gone. 

 

Boys must be tended to, you know. 

 

Yes, I said, my pulse quickening. How could he be so oblivious to my 
apprehension? He shifted the newspaper to his other hand, resumed the fanning. 
They want bicycles now 

 

Who? 

 

My boys, he said. Theyre saying, Daddy, Daddy, please buy us bicycles and 
well not trouble you. Please, Daddy! He gave a short laugh through his nose. 
Bicycles. Their mother will kill me, I swear to you. 

 

I imagined Sohrab lying in a ditch. Or in the trunk of some car, bound and 
gagged. I didnt want his blood on my hands. Not his too. Please... I said. I 
squinted. Read his name tag on the lapel of his short-sleeve blue cotton shirt. 
Mr. Fayyaz, have you seen him? 

 

The boy? 

 

I bit down. Yes, the boy! The boy who came with me. Have you seen him or not, 
for Gods sake? 

 

The fanning stopped. His eyes narrowed. No getting smart with me, my friend. I 
am not the one who lost him. 

 

That he had a point did not stop the blood from rushing to my face. Youre 
right. Im wrong. My fault. Now, have you seen him? 

 

Sorry, he said curtly. He put his glasses back on. Snapped his newspaper open. 
I have seen no such boy. 

 

I stood at the counter for a minute, trying not to scream. As I was exiting the 
lobby, he said, Any idea where he might have wandered to? 

 

No, I said. I felt tired. Tired and scared. 

 

Does he have any interests? he said. I saw he had folded the paper. My boys, 
for example, they will do anything for American action films, especially with 
that Arnold ??WThatsanegger-- 

 


The mosque! I said. The big mosque. I remembered the way the mosque had 
jolted Sohrab from his stupor when wed driven by it, how hed leaned out of the 
window looking at it. 

 

Shah Faisal? 

 

Yes. Can you take me there? 

 

Did you know its the biggest mosque in the world? he asked. 

 

No, but-- 

 

The courtyard alone can fit forty thousand people. 

 

Can you take me there? 

 

Its only a kilometer from here, he said. But he was already pushing away from 
the counter. 

 

Ill pay you for the ride, I said. 

 

He sighed and shook his head. Wait here. He disappeared into the back room, 
returned wearing another pair of eyeglasses, a set of keys in hand, and with a 
short, chubby woman in an orange sari trailing him. She took his seat behind the 
counter. I dont take your money, he said, blowing by me. I will drive you 
because I am a father like you. 

 

 

I THOUGHT WED END UP DRIVING around the city until night fell. I saw myself 
calling the police, describing Sohrab to them under Fayyazs reproachful glare. 
I heard the officer, his voice tired and uninterested, asking his obligatory 
questions. And beneath the official questions, an unofficial one: Who the hell 
cared about another dead Afghan kid? 

 

But we found him about a hundred yards from the mosque, sitting in the half-full 
parking lot, on an island of grass. Fayyaz pulled up to the island and let me 
out. I have to get back, he said. 

 

Thats fine. Well walk back, I said. Thank you, Mr. Fayyaz. Really. 

 

He leaned across the front seat when I got out. Can I say something to you? 

 

Sure. 

 

In the dark of twilight, his face was just a pair of eyeglasses reflecting the 
fading light. The thing about you Afghanis is that... well, you people are a 
little reckless. 

 

I was tired and in pain. My jaws throbbed. And those damn wounds on my chest and 
stomach felt like barbed wire under my skin. But I started to laugh anyway. 

 

What... what did I... Fayyaz was saying, but I was cackling by then, full-
throated bursts of laughter spilling through my wired mouth. 

 

Crazy people, he said. His tires screeched when he peeled away, his tail-
lights blinking red in the dimming light. 

 


You GAVE ME A GOOD SCARE, I said. I sat beside him, wincing with pain as I 
bent. 

 

He was looking at the mosque. Shah Faisal Mosque was shaped like a giant tent. 
Cars came and went; worshipers dressed in white streamed in and out. We sat in 
silence, me leaning against the tree, Sohrab next to me, knees to his chest. We 
listened to the call to prayer, watched the buildings hundreds of lights come 
on as daylight faded. The mosque sparkled like a diamond in the dark. It lit up 
the sky, Sohrabs face. 

 

Have you ever been to Mazar-i-Sharif? Sohrab said, his chin resting on his 
kneecaps. 

 

A long time ago. I dont remember it much. 

 

Father took me there when I was little. Mother and Sasa came along too. Father 
bought me a monkey from the bazaar. Not a real one but the kind you have to blow 
up. It was brown and had a bow tie. 

 

I might have had one of those when I was a kid. 

 

Father took me to the Blue Mosque, Sohrab said. I remember there were so many 
pigeons outside the masjid, and they werent afraid of people. They came right 
up to us. Sasa gave me little pieces of _naan_ and I fed the birds. Soon, there 
were pigeons cooing all around me. That was fun. 

 

You must miss your parents very much, I said. I wondered if hed seen the 
Taliban drag his parents out into the street. I hoped he hadnt. 

 

Do you miss your parents? he aked, resting his cheek on his knees, looking up 
at me. 

 

Do I miss my parents? Well, I never met my mother. My father died a few years 
ago, and, yes, I do miss him. Sometimes a lot. 

 

Do you remember what he looked like? 

 

I thought of Babas thick neck, his black eyes, his unruly brown hair. Sitting 
on his lap had been like sitting on a pair of tree trunks. I remember what he 
looked like, I said. What he smelled like too. 

 

Im starting to forget their faces, Sohrab said. Is that bad? 

 

No, I said. Time does that. I thought of something. I looked in the front 
pocket of my coat. Found the Polaroid snap shot of Hassan and Sohrab. Here, I 
said. 

 

He brought the photo to within an inch of his face, turned it so the light from 
the mosque fell on it. He looked at it for a long time. I thought he might cry, 
but he didnt. He just held it in both hands, traced his thumb over its surface. 
I thought of a line Id read somewhere, or maybe Id heard someone say it: There 
are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood. He stretched his 
hand to give it back to me. 

 

Keep it, I said. Its yours. 

 


Thank you. He looked at the photo again and stowed it in the pocket of his 
vest. A horse-drawn cart clip-clopped by in the parking lot. Little bells 
dangled from the horses neck and jingled with each step. 

 

Ive been thinking a lot about mosques lately, Sohrab said. 

 

You have? What about them? 

 

He shrugged. Just thinking about them. He lifted his face, looked straight at 
me. Now he was crying, softly, silently. Can I ask you something, Amir agha? 

 

Of course. 

 

Will God... he began, and choked a little. Will God put me in hell for what I 
did to that man? 

 

I reached for him and he flinched. I pulled back. Nay. Of course not, I said. 
I wanted to pull him close, hold him, tell him the world had been unkind to him, 
not the other way around. 

 

His face twisted and strained to stay composed. Father used to say its wrong 
to hurt even bad people. Because they dont know any better, and because bad 
people sometimes become good. 

 

Not always, Sohrab. 

 

He looked at me questioningly. 

 

The man who hurt you, I knew him from many years ago, I said. I guess you 
figured that out that from the conversation he and I had. He... he tried to hurt 
me once when I was your age, but your father saved me. Your father was very 
brave and he was always rescuing me from trouble, standing up for me. So one day 
the bad man hurt your father instead. He hurt him in a very bad way, and I... I 
couldnt save your father the way he had saved me. 

 

Why did people want to hurt my father? Sohrab said in a wheezy little voice. 
He was never mean to anyone. 

 

Youre right. Your father was a good man. But thats what Im trying to tell 
you, Sohrab jan. That there are bad people in this world, and sometimes bad 
people stay bad. Sometimes you have to stand up to them. What you did to that 
man is what I should have done to him all those years ago. You gave him what he 
deserved, and he deserved even more. 

 

Do you think Father is disappointed in me? 

 

I know hes not, I said. You saved my life in Kabul. I know he is very proud 
of you for that. 

 

He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt. It burst a bubble of spittle 
that had formed on his lips. He buried his face in his hands and wept a long 
time before he spoke again. I miss Father, and Mother too, he croaked. And I 
miss Sasa and Rahim Khan sahib. But sometimes Im glad theyre not ... theyre 
not here anymore. 

 

Why? I touched his arm. He drew back. 

 


Because-- he said, gasping and hitching between sobs, because I dont want 
them to see me... Im so dirty. He sucked in his breath and let it out in a 
long, wheezy cry. Im so dirty and full of sin. 

 

Youre not dirty, Sohrab, I said. 

 

Those men-- 

 

Youre not dirty at all. 

 

--they did things... the bad man and the other two... they did things... did 
things to me. 

 

Youre not dirty, and youre not full of sin. I touched his arm again and he 
drew away. I reached again, gently, and pulled him to me. I wont hurt you, I 
whispered. I promise. He resisted a lit tle. Slackened. He let me draw him to 
me and rested his head on my chest. His little body convulsed in my arms with 
each sob. 

 

A kinship exists between people whove fed from the same breast. Now, as the 
boys pain soaked through my shirt, I saw that a kinship had taken root between 
us too. What had happened in that room with Assef had irrevocably bound us. 

 

Id been looking for the right time, the right moment, to ask the question that 
had been buzzing around in my head and keep ing me up at night. I decided the 
moment was now, right here, right now, with the bright lights of the house of 
God shining on us. 

 

Would you like to come live in America with me and my wife? 

 

He didnt answer. He sobbed into my shirt and I let him. 

 

 

FOR A WEEK, neither one of us mentioned what I had asked him, as if the question 
hadnt been posed at all. Then one day, Sohrab and I took a taxicab to the 
Daman-e-Koh Viewpoint--or the hem of the mountain. Perched midway up the 
Margalla Hills, it gives a panoramic view of Islamabad, its rows of clean, tree-
lined avenues and white houses. The driver told us we could see the presidential 
palace from up there. If it has rained and the air is clear, you can even see 
past Rawalpindi, he said. I saw his eyes in his rearview mirror, skipping from 
Sohrab to me, back and forth, back and forth. I saw my own face too. It wasnt 
as swollen as before, but it had taken on a yellow tint from my assortment of 
fading bruises. 

 

We sat on a bench in one of the picnic areas, in the shade of a gum tree. It was 
a warm day, the sun perched high in a topaz blue sky. On benches nearby, 
families snacked on samosas and pakoras. Somewhere, a radio played a Hindi song 
I thought I remembered from an old movie, maybe Pakeeza. Kids, many of them 
Sohrabs age, chased soccer balls, giggling, yelling. I thought about the 
orphanage in Karteh-Seh, thought about the rat that had scurried between my feet 
in Zamans office. My chest tightened with a surge of unexpected anger at the 
way my countrymen were destroying their own land. 

 

What? Sohrab asked. I forced a smile and told him it wasnt important. 

 

We unrolled one of the hotels bathroom towels on the picnic table and played 
panjpar on it. It felt good being there, with my half brothers son, playing 


cards, the warmth of the sun patting the back of my neck. The song ended and 
another one started, one I didnt recognize. 

 

Look, Sohrab said. He was pointing to the sky with his cards. I looked up, saw 
a hawk circling in the broad seamless sky. Didnt know there were hawks in 
Islamabad, I said. 

 

Me neither, he said, his eyes tracing the birds circular flight. Do they 
have them where you live? 

 

San Francisco? I guess so. I cant say Ive seen too many, though. 

 

Oh, he said. I was hoping hed ask more, but he dealt another hand and asked 
if we could eat. I opened the paper bag and gave him his meatball sandwich. My 
lunch consisted of yet another cup of blended bananas and oranges--Id rented 
Mrs. Fayyazs blender for the week. I sucked through the straw and my mouth 
filled with the sweet, blended fruit. Some of it dripped from the corner of my 
lips. Sohrab handed me a napkin and watched me dab at my lips. I smiled and he 
smiled back. 

 

Your father and I were brothers, I said. It just came out. I had wanted to 
tell him the night we had sat by the mosque, but I hadnt. But he had a right to 
know; I didnt want to hide anything anymore. Half brothers, really. We had the 
same father. 

 

Sohrab stopped chewing. Put the sandwich down. Father never said he had a 
brother. 

 

Thats because he didnt know. 

 

Why didnt he know? 

 

No one told him, I said. No one told me either. I just found out recently. 

 

Sohrab blinked. Like he was looking at me, really looking at me, for the very 
first time. But why did people hide it from Father and you? 

 

You know, I asked myself that same question the other day. And theres an 
answer, but not a good one. Lets just say they didnt tell us because your 
father and I... we werent supposed to be brothers. 

 

Because he was a Hazara? 

 

I willed my eyes to stay on him. Yes. 

 

Did your father, he began, eyeing his food, did your father love you and my 
father equally? 

 

I thought of a long ago day at Ghargha Lake, when Baba had allowed himself to 
pat Hassan on the back when Hassans stone had outskipped mine. I pictured Baba 
in the hospital room, beaming as they removed the bandages from Hassans lips. 
I think he loved us equally but differently. 

 

Was he ashamed of my father? 

 

No, I said. I think he was ashamed of himself. 

 


He picked up his sandwich and nibbled at it silently. 

 

 

WE LEFT LATE THAT AFTERNOON, tired from the heat, but tired in a pleasant way. 
All the way back, I felt Sohrab watching me. I had the driver pull over at a 
store that sold calling cards. I gave him the money and a tip for running in and 
buying me one. 

 

That night, we were lying on our beds, watching a talk show on TV. Two clerics 
with pepper gray long beards and white turbans were taking calls from the 
faithful all over the world. One caller from Finland, a guy named Ayub, asked if 
his teenaged son could go to hell for wearing his baggy pants so low the seam of 
his underwear showed. 

 

I saw a picture of San Francisco once, Sohrab said. 

 

Really? 

 

There was a red bridge and a building with a pointy top. 

 

You should see the streets, I said. 

 

What about them? He was looking at me now. On the TV screen, the two mullahs 
were consulting each other. 

 

Theyre so steep, when you drive up all you see is the hood of your car and the 
sky, I said. 

 

It sounds scary, he said. He rolled to his side, facing me, his back to the 
TV. 

 

It is the first few times, I said. But you get used to it. 

 

Does it snow there? 

 

No, but we get a lot of fog. You know that red bridge you saw? 

 

Yes. 

 

Sometimes the fog is so thick in the morning, all you see is the tip of the two 
towers poking through. 

 

There was wonder in his smile. Oh. 

 

Sohrab? 

 

Yes. 

 

Have you given any thought to what I asked you before? 

 

His smiled faded. He rolled to his back. Laced his hands under his head. The 
mullahs decided that Ayubs son would go to hell after all for wearing his pants 
the way he did. They claimed it was in the Haddith. Ive thought about it, 
Sohrab said. 

 

And? 

 


It scares me. 

 

I know its a little scary, I said, grabbing onto that loose thread of hope. 
But youll learn English so fast and youll get used to-- 

 

Thats not what I mean. That scares me too, but... 

 

But what? 

 

He rolled toward me again. Drew his knees up. What if you get tired of me? What 
if your wife doesnt like me? 

 

I struggled out of bed and crossed the space between us. I sat beside him. I 
wont ever get tired of you, Sohrab, I said. Not ever. Thats a promise. 
Youre my nephew, remember? And Soraya jan, shes a very kind woman. Trust me, 
shes going to love you. I promise that too. I chanced something. Reached down 
and took his hand. He tightened up a little but let me hold it. 

 

I dont want to go to another orphanage, he said. 

 

I wont ever let that happen. I promise you that. I cupped his hand in both of 
mine. Come home with me. 

 

His tears were soaking the pillow. He didnt say anything for a long time. Then 
his hand squeezed mine back. And he nodded. He nodded. 

 

 

THE CONNECTION WENT THROUGH on the fourth try. The phone rang three times before 
she picked it up. Hello? It was 7:30 in the evening in Islamabad, roughly 
about the same time in the morning in California. That meant Soraya had been up 
for an hour, getting ready for school. 

 

Its me, I said. I was sitting on my bed, watching Sohrab sleep. 

 

Amir! she almost screamed. Are you okay? Where are you? 

 

Im in Pakistan. 

 

Why didnt you call earlier? Ive been sick with tashweesh! My mothers praying 
and doing nazr every day. 

 

Im sorry I didnt call. Im fine now. I had told her Id be away a week, two 
at the most. Id been gone for nearly a month. I smiled. And tell Khala Jamila 
to stop killing sheep. 

 

What do you mean fine now? And whats wrong with your voice? 

 

Dont worry about that for now. Im fine. Really. Soraya, I have a story to 
tell you, a story I should have told you a long time ago, but first I need to 
tell you one thing. 

 

What is it? she said, her voice lower now, more cautious. 

 

Im not coming home alone. Im bringing a little boy with me. I paused. I 
want us to adopt him. 

 

What? 


 

I checked my watch. I have fifty-seven minutes left on this stupid calling card 
and I have so much to tell you. Sit some where. I heard the legs of a chair 
dragged hurriedly across the wooden floor. 

 

Go ahead, she said. 

 

Then I did what I hadnt done in fifteen years of marriage: I told my wife 
everything. Everything. I had pictured this moment so many times, dreaded it, 
but, as I spoke, I felt something lifting off my chest. I imagined Soraya had 
experienced something very similar the night of our khastegari, when shed told 
me about her past. 

 

By the time I was done with my story, she was weeping. 

 

What do you think? I said. 

 

I dont know what to think, Amir. Youve told me so much all at once. 

 

I realize that. 

 

I heard her blowing her nose. But I know this much: You have to bring him home. 
I want you to. 

 

Are you sure? I said, closing my eyes and smiling. 

 

Am I sure? she said. Amir, hes your qaom, your family, so hes my qaom too. 
Of course Im sure. You cant leave him to the streets. There was a short 
pause. Whats he like? 

 

I looked over at Sohrab sleeping on the bed. Hes sweet, in a solemn kind of 
way. 

 

Who can blame him? she said. I want to see him, Amir. I really do. 

 

Soraya? 

 

Yeah. 

 

Dostet darum. I love you. 

 

I love you back, she said. I could hear the smile in her words. And be 
careful. 

 

I will. And one more thing. Dont tell your parents who he is. If they need to 
know, it should come from me. 

 

Okay. 

 

We hung up. 

 

 

THE LAWN OUTSIDE the American embassy in Islamabad was neatly mowed, dotted with 
circular clusters of flowers, bordered by razor-straight hedges. The building 
itself was like a lot of buildings in Islamabad: flat and white. We passed 
through several road blocks to get there and three different security officials 
conducted a body search on me after the wires in my jaws set off the metal 


detectors. When we finally stepped in from the heat, the airconditioning hit my 
face like a splash of ice water. The secretary in the lobby, a fifty-something, 
lean-faced blond woman, smiled when I gave her my name. She wore a beige blouse 
and black slacks--the first woman Id seen in weeks dressed in something other 
than a burqa or a shalwar-kameez. She looked me up on the appointment list, 
tapping the eraser end of her pencil on the desk. She found my name and asked me 
to take a seat. 

 

Would you like some lemonade? she asked. 

 

None for me, thanks, I said. 

 

How about your son? 

 

Excuse me? 

 

The handsome young gentleman, she said, smiling at Sohrab. 

 

Oh. Thatd be nice, thank you. 

 

Sohrab and I sat on the black leather sofa across the reception desk, next to a 
tall American flag. Sohrab picked up a magazine from the glass-top coffee table. 
He flipped the pages, not really looking at the pictures. 

 

What? Sohrab said. 

 

Sorry? 

 

Youre smiling. 

 

I was thinking about you, I said. 

 

He gave a nervous smile. Picked up another magazine and flipped through it in 
under thirty seconds. 

 

Dont be afraid, I said, touching his arm. These people are friendly. Relax. 
I could have used my own advice. I kept shifting in my seat, untying and retying 
my shoelaces. The secretary placed a tall glass of lemonade with ice on the 
coffee table. There you go. 

Sohrab smiled shyly. Thank you very much, he said in English. It came out as 
Tank you wery match. It was the only English he knew, hed told me, that and 
Have a nice day. 

 

She laughed. Youre most welcome. She walked back to her desk, high heels 
clicking on the floor. 

 

Have a nice day, Sohrab said. 

 

 

RAYMOND ANDREWS was a short fellow with small hands, nails perfectly trimmed, 
wedding band on the ring finger. He gave me a curt little shake; it felt like 
squeezing a sparrow. Those are the hands that hold our fates, I thought as 
Sohrab and I seated our selves across from his desk. A _Les Misrables_ poster 
was nailed to the wall behind Andrews next to a topographical map of the U.S. A 
pot of tomato plants basked in the sun on the windowsill. 

 


Smoke? he asked, his voice a deep baritone that was at odds with his slight 
stature. 

 

No thanks, I said, not caring at all for the way Andrewss eyes barely gave 
Sohrab a glance, or the way he didnt look at me when he spoke. He pulled open a 
desk drawer and lit a cigarette from a half-empty pack. He also produced a 
bottle of lotion from the same drawer. He looked at his tomato plants as he 
rubbed lotion into his hands, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. 
Then he closed the drawer, put his elbows on the desktop, and exhaled. So, he 
said, crinkling his gray eyes against the smoke, tell me your story. 

 

I felt like Jean Valjean sitting across from Javert. I reminded myself that I 
was on American soil now, that this guy was on my side, that he got paid for 
helping people like me. I want to adopt this boy, take him back to the States 
with me, I said. 

 

Tell me your story, he repeated, crushing a flake of ash on the neatly 
arranged desk with his index finger, flicking it into the trash can. 

 

I gave him the version I had worked out in my head since Id hung up with 
Soraya. I had gone into Afghanistan to bring back my half brothers son. I had 
found the boy in squalid conditions, wasting away in an orphanage. I had paid 
the orphanage director a sum of money and withdrawn the boy. Then I had brought 
him to Pakistan. 

 

You are the boys half uncle? 

 

Yes. 

 

He checked his watch. Leaned and turned the tomato plants on the sill. Know 
anyone who can attest to that? 

 

Yes, but I dont know where he is now. 

 

He turned to me and nodded. I tried to read his face and couldnt. I wondered if 
hed ever tried those little hands of his at poker. 

 

I assume getting your jaws wired isnt the latest fashion statement, he said. 
We were in trouble, Sohrab and I, and I knew it then. I told him Id gotten 
mugged in Peshawar. 

 

Of course, he said. Cleared his throat. Are you Muslim? 

 

Yes. 

 

Practicing? 

 

Yes. In truth, I didnt remember the last time I had laid my forehead to the 
ground in prayer. Then I did remember: the day Dr. Amani gave Baba his 
prognosis. I had kneeled on the prayer rug, remembering only fragments of verses 
I had learned in school. 

 

Helps your case some, but not much, he said, scratching a spot on the flawless 
part in his sandy hair. 

 

What do you mean? I asked. I reached for Sohrabs hand, intertwined my fingers 
with his. Sohrab looked uncertainly from me to Andrews. 


 

Theres a long answer and Im sure Ill end up giving it to you. You want the 
short one first? 

 

I guess, I said. 

 

Andrews crushed his cigarette, his lips pursed. Give it up. 

 

Im sorry? 

 

Your petition to adopt this young fellow. Give it up. Thats my advice to you. 

 

Duly noted, I said. Now, perhaps youll tell me why. 

 

That means you want the long answer, he said, his voice impassive, not 
reacting at all to my curt tone. He pressed his hands palm to palm, as if he 
were kneeling before the Virgin Mary. Lets assume the story you gave me is 
true, though Id bet my pension a good deal of it is either fabricated or 
omitted. Not that I care, mind you. Youre here, hes here, thats all that 
matters. Even so, your petition faces significant obstacles, not the least of 
which is that this child is not an orphan. 

 

Of course he is. 

 

Not legally he isnt. 

 

His parents were executed in the street. The neighbors saw it, I said, glad we 
were speaking in English. 

 

You have death certificates? 

 

Death certificates? This is Afghanistan were talking about. Most people there 
dont have birth certificates. 

 

His glassy eyes didnt so much as blink. I dont make the laws, sir. Your 
outrage notwithstanding, you still need to prove the parents are deceased. The 
boy has to be declared a legal orphan. 

 

But-- 

 

You wanted the long answer and Im giving it to you. Your next problem is that 
you need the cooperation of the childs country of origin. Now, thats difficult 
under the best of circumstances, and, to quote you, this is Afghanistan were 
talking about. We dont have an American embassy in Kabul. That makes things 
extremely complicated. Just about impossible. 

 

What are you saying, that I should throw him back on the streets? I said. 

 

I didnt say that. 

 

He was sexually abused, I said, thinking of the bells around Sohrabs ankles, 
the mascara on his eyes. 

 

Im sorry to hear that, Andrewss mouth said. The way he was looking at me, 
though, we might as well have been talking about the weather. But that is not 
going to make the INS issue this young fellow a visa. 

 


What are you saying? 

 

Im saying that if you want to help, send money to a reputable relief 
organization. Volunteer at a refugee camp. But at this point in time, we 
strongly discourage U.S. citizens from attempting to adopt Afghan children. 

 

I got up. Come on, Sohrab, I said in Farsi. Sohrab slid next to me, rested his 
head on my hip. I remembered the Polaroid of him and Hassan standing that same 
way. Can I ask you some thing, Mr. Andrews? 

 

Yes. 

 

Do you have children? 

 

For the first time, he blinked. 

 

Well, do you? Its a simple question. 

 

He was silent. 

 

I thought so, I said, taking Sohrabs hand. They ought to put someone in your 
chair who knows what its like to want a child. I turned to go, Sohrab trailing 
me. 

 

Can I ask you a question? Andrews called. 

 

Go ahead. 

 

Have you promised this child youll take him with you? 

 

What if I have? 

 

He shook his head. Its a dangerous business, making promises to kids. He 
sighed and opened his desk drawer again. You mean to pursue this? he said, 
rummaging through papers. 

 

I mean to pursue this. 

 

He produced a business card. Then I advise you to get a good immigration 
lawyer. Omar Faisal works here in Islamabad. You can tell him I sent you. 

 

I took the card from him. Thanks, I muttered. 

 

Good luck, he said. As we exited the room, I glanced over my shoulder. Andrews 
was standing in a rectangle of sunlight, absently staring out the window, his 
hands turning the potted tomato plants toward the sun, petting them lovingly. 

 

TAKE CARE, the secretary said as we passed her desk. 

 

Your boss could use some manners, I said. I expected her to roll her eyes, 
maybe nod in that I know, everybody says that, kind of way. Instead, she 
lowered her voice. Poor Ray. He hasnt been the same since his daughter died. 

 

I raised an eyebrow. 

 

Suicide, she whispered. 

 


 

I know it sounds crazy, but I find myself wondering what his favorite _qurma_ 
will be, or his favorite subject in school. I picture myself helping him with 
homework... She laughed. In the bathroom, the water had stopped running. I 
could hear Sohrab in there, shifting in the tub, spilling water over the sides. 

 

Youre going to be great, I said. 

 

Oh, I almost forgot! I called Kaka Sharif. 

 

I remembered him reciting a poem at our nika from a scrap of hotel stationery 
paper. His son had held the Koran over our heads as Soraya and I had walked 
toward the stage, smiling at the flashing cameras. What did he say? 

 

Well, hes going to stir the pot for us. Hell call some of his INS buddies, 
she said. 

 

Thats really great news, I said. I cant wait for you to see Sohrab. 

 

I cant wait to see you, she said. 

 

I hung up smiling. 

 

 

ON THE TAXI RIDE back to the hotel, Sohrab rested his head on the window, kept 
staring at the passing buildings, the rows of gum trees. His breath fogged the 
glass, cleared, fogged it again. I waited for him to ask me about the meeting 
but he didnt. 

 

 

ON THE OTHER SIDE of the closed bathroom door the water was running. Since the 
day wed checked into the hotel, Sohrab took a long bath every night before bed. 
In Kabul, hot running water had been like fathers, a rare commodity. Now Sohrab 
spent almost an hour a night in the bath, soaking in the soapy water, scrubbing. 
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I called Soraya. I glanced at the thin line of 
light under the bathroom door. Do you feel clean yet, Sohrab? 

 

I passed on to Soraya what Raymond Andrews had told me. So what do you think? 
I said. 

 

We have to think hes wrong. She told me she had called a few adoption 
agencies that arranged international adoptions. She hadnt yet found one that 
would consider doing an Afghan adoption, but she was still looking. 

 

How are your parents taking the news? 

 

Madar is happy for us. You know how she feels about you, Amir, you can do no 
wrong in her eyes. Padar... well, as always, hes a little harder to read. Hes 
not saying much. 

 

And you? Are you happy? 

 

I heard her shifting the receiver to her other hand. I think well be good for 
your nephew, but maybe that little boy will be good for us too. 

 

I was thinking the same thing. 


Sohrab emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later. He had barely said a dozen 
words since the meeting with Raymond Andrews and my attempts at conversation had 
only met with a nod or a monosyllabic reply. He climbed into bed, pulled the 
blanket to his chin. Within minutes, he was snoring. 

 

I wiped a circle on the fogged-up mirror and shaved with one of the hotels old-
fashioned razors, the type that opened and you slid the blade in. Then I took my 
own bath, lay there until the steaming hot water turned cold and my skin 
shriveled up. I lay there drifting, wondering, imagining... 

 

 

OMAR FAISAL WAS CHUBBY, dark, had dimpled cheeks, black button eyes, and an 
affable, gap-toothed smile. His thinning gray hair was tied back in a ponytail. 
He wore a brown corduroy suit with leather elbow patches and carried a worn, 
overstuffed briefcase. The handle was missing, so he clutched the briefcase to 
his chest. He was the sort of fellow who started a lot of sentences with a laugh 
and an unnecessary apology, like Im sorry, Ill be there at five. Laugh. When I 
had called him, he had insisted on coming out to meet us. Im sorry, the 
cabbies in this town are sharks, he said in perfect English, without a trace of 
an accent. They smell a foreigner, they triple their fares. 

 

He pushed through the door, all smiles and apologies, wheezing a little and 
sweating. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief and opened his briefcase, 
rummaged in it for a notepad and apologized for the sheets of paper that spilled 
on the bed. Sitting crosslegged on his bed, Sohrab kept one eye on the muted 
television, the other on the harried lawyer. I had told him in the morning that 
Faisal would be coming and he had nodded, almost asked some thing, and had just 
gone on watching a show with talking animals. 

 

Here we are, Faisal said, flipping open a yellow legal notepad. I hope my 
children take after their mother when it comes to organization. Im sorry, 
probably not the sort of thing you want to hear from your prospective lawyer, 
heh? He laughed. 

 

Well, Raymond Andrews thinks highly of you. 

 

 

He did? 

 

Oh yes. 

 

So youre familiar with my situation. 

 

Faisal dabbed at the sweat beads above his lips. Im familiar with the version 
of the situation you gave Mr. Andrews, he said. His cheeks dimpled with a coy 
smile. He turned to Sohrab. This must be the young man whos causing all the 
trouble, he said in Farsi. 

 

This is Sohrab, I said. Sohrab, this is Mr. Faisal, the lawyer I told you 
about. 

 

Sohrab slid down the side of his bed and shook hands with Omar Faisal. Salaam 
alaykum, he said in a low voice. 

 


Alaykum salaam, Sohrab, Faisal said. Did you know you are named after a great 
warrior? 

 

Sohrab nodded. Climbed back onto his bed and lay on his side to watch TV. 

 

I didnt know you spoke Farsi so well, I said in English. Did you grow up in 
Kabul? 

 

No, I was born in Karachi. But I did live in Kabul for a number of years. Shar-
e-Nau, near the Haji Yaghoub Mosque, Faisal said. I grew up in Berkeley, 
actually. My father opened a music store there in the late sixties. Free love, 
headbands, tiedyed shirts, you name it. He leaned forward. I was at 
Woodstock. 

 

Groovy, I said, and Faisal laughed so hard he started sweating all over again. 
Anyway, I continued, what I told Mr. Andrews was pretty much it, save for a 
thing or two. Or maybe three. Ill give you the uncensored version. 

 

He licked a finger and flipped to a blank page, uncapped his pen. Id 
appreciate that, Amir. And why dont we just keep it in English from here on 
out? 

 

Fine. 

 

I told him everything that had happened. Told him about my meeting with Rahim 
Khan, the trek to Kabul, the orphanage, the stoning at Ghazi Stadium. 

 

God, he whispered. Im sorry, I have such fond memories of Kabul. Hard to 
believe its the same place youre telling me about. 

 

Have you been there lately? 

 

God no. 

 

Its not Berkeley, Ill tell you that, I said. 

 

Go on. 

 

I told him the rest, the meeting with Assef, the fight, Sohrab and his 
slingshot, our escape back to Pakistan. When I was done, he scribbled a few 
notes, breathed in deeply, and gave me a sober look. Well, Amir, youve got a 
tough battle ahead of you. 

 

One I can win? 

 

He capped his pen. At the risk of sounding like Raymond Andrews, its not 
likely. Not impossible, but hardly likely. Gone was the affable smile, the 
playful look in his eyes. 

 

But its kids like Sohrab who need a home the most, I said. These rules and 
regulations dont make any sense to me. 

 

Youre preaching to the choir, Amir, he said. But the fact is, take current 
immigration laws, adoption agency policies, and the political situation in 
Afghanistan, and the deck is stacked against you. 

 


I dont get it, I said. I wanted to hit something. I mean, I get it but I 
dont get it. 

 

Omar nodded, his brow furrowed. Well, its like this. In the aftermath of a 
disaster, whether it be natural or man-made--and the Taliban are a disaster, 
Amir, believe me--its always difficult to ascertain that a child is an orphan. 
Kids get displaced in refugee camps, or parents just abandon them because they 
cant take care of them. Happens all the time. So the INS wont grant a visa 
unless its clear the child meets the definition of an eligible orphan. Im 
sorry, I know it sounds ridiculous, but you need death certificates. 

 

Youve been to Afghanistan, I said. You know how improbable that is. 

 

I know, he said. But lets suppose its clear that the child has no surviving 
parent. Even then, the INS thinks its good adoption practice to place the child 
with someone in his own country so his heritage can be preserved. 

 

What heritage? I said. The Taliban have destroyed what heritage Afghans had. 
You saw what they did to the giant Buddhas in Bamiyan. 

 

Im sorry, Im telling you how the INS works, Amir, Omar said, touching my 
arm. He glanced at Sohrab and smiled. Turned back to me. Now, a child has to be 
legally adopted according to the laws and regulations of his own country. But 
when you have a country in turmoil, say a country like Afghanistan, government 
offices are busy with emergencies, and processing adoptions wont be a top 
priority. 

 

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. A pounding headache was settling in just behind 
them. 

 

But lets suppose that somehow Afghanistan gets its act together, Omar said, 
crossing his arms on his protruding belly. It still may not permit this 
adoption. In fact, even the more moderate Muslim nations are hesitant with 
adoptions because in many of those countries, Islamic law, Sharia, doesnt 
recognize adoption. 

 

Youre telling me to give it up? I asked, pressing my palm to my forehead. 

 

I grew up in the U.S., Amir. If America taught me anything, its that quitting 
is right up there with pissing in the Girl Scouts lemonade jar. But, as your 
lawyer, I have to give you the facts, he said. Finally, adoption agencies 
routinely send staff members to evaluate the childs milieu, and no reasonable 
agency is going to send an agent to Afghanistan. 

 

I looked at Sohrab sitting on the bed, watching TV, watching us. He was sitting 
the way his father used to, chin resting on one knee. 

 

Im his half uncle, does that count for anything? 

 

It does if you can prove it. Im sorry, do you have any papers or anyone who 
can support you? 

 

No papers, I said, in a tired voice. No one knew about it. Sohrab didnt know 
until I told him, and I myself didnt find out until recently. The only other 
person who knows is gone, maybe dead. 

 

What are my options, Omar? 


 

Ill be frank. You dont have a lot of them. 

 

Well, Jesus, what can I do? 

 

Omar breathed in, tapped his chin with the pen, let his breath out. You could 
still file an orphan petition, hope for the best. You could do an independent 
adoption. That means youd have to live with Sohrab here in Pakistan, day in and 
day out, for the next two years. You could seek asylum on his behalf. Thats a 
lengthy process and youd have to prove political persecution. You could request 
a humanitarian visa. Thats at the discretion of the attorney general and its 
not easily given. He paused. There is another option, probably your best 
shot. 

 

What? I said, leaning forward. 

 

You could relinquish him to an orphanage here, then file an orphan petition. 
Start your I-600 form and your home study while hes in a safe place. 

 

What are those? 

 

Im sorry, the 1-600 is an INS formality. The home study is done by the 
adoption agency you choose, Omar said. Its, you know, to make sure you and 
your wife arent raving lunatics. 

 

I dont want to do that, I said, looking again at Sohrab. I promised him I 
wouldnt send him back to an orphanage. 

 

Like I said, it may be your best shot. 

 

We talked a while longer. Then I walked him out to his car, an old VW Bug. The 
sun was setting on Islamabad by then, a flaming red nimbus in the west. I 
watched the car tilt under Omars weight as he somehow managed to slide in 
behind the wheel. He rolled down the window. Amir? 

 

Yes. 

 

I meant to tell you in there, about what youre trying to do? I think its 
pretty great. 

He waved as he pulled away. Standing outside the hotel room and waving back, I 
wished Soraya could be there with me. 

 

 

SOHRAB HAD TURNED OFF THE TV when l went back into the room. I sat on the edge 
of my bed, asked him to sit next to me. Mr. Faisal thinks there is a way I can 
take you to America with me, I said. 

 

He does? Sohrab said, smiling faintly for the first time in days. When can we 
go? 

 

Well, thats the thing. It might take a little while. But he said it can be 
done and hes going to help us. I put my hand on the back of his neck. From 
outside, the call to prayer blared through the streets. 

 

How long? Sohrab asked. 

 

I dont know. A while. 


 

Sohrab shrugged and smiled, wider this time. I dont mind. I can wait. Its 
like the sour apples. 

 

Sour apples? 

 

One time, when I was really little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour 
apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother 
said that if Id just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldnt have become 
sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember what she said 
about the apples. 

 

Sour apples, I said. _Mashallah_, youre just about the smartest little guy 
Ive ever met, Sohrab jan. His ears reddened with a blush. 

 

Will you take me to that red bridge? The one with the fog? he said. 

 

Absolutely, I said. Absolutely. 

 

And well drive up those streets, the ones where all you see is the hood of the 
car and the sky? 

 

Every single one of them, I said. My eyes stung with tears and I blinked them 
away. 

 

Is English hard to learn? 

 

I say, within a year, youll speak it as well as Farsi. 

 

Really? 

 

Yes. I placed a finger under his chin, turned his face up to mine. There is 
one other thing, Sohrab. 

 

What? 

 

Well, Mr. Faisal thinks that it would really help if we could... if we could 
ask you to stay in a home for kids for a while. 

 

Home for kids? he said, his smile fading. You mean an orphanage? 

 

It would only be for a little while. 

 

No, he said. No, please. 

 

Sohrab, it would be for just a little while. I promise. 

 

You promised youd never put me in one of those places, Amir agha, he said. 
His voice was breaking, tears pooling in his eyes. I felt like a prick. 

 

This is different. It would be here, in Islamabad, not in Kabul. And Id visit 
you all the time until we can get you out and take you to America. 

 

Please! Please, no! he croaked. Im scared of that place. Theyll hurt me! I 
dont want to go. 

 

No one is going to hurt you. Not ever again. 


 

Yes they will! They always say they wont but they lie. They lie! Please, God! 

 

I wiped the tear streaking down his cheek with my thumb. Sour apples, remember? 
Its just like the sour apples, I said softly. 

 

No its not. Not that place. God, oh God. Please, no! He was trembling, snot 
and tears mixing on his face. 

 

Shhh. I pulled him close, wrapped my arms around his shaking little body. 
Shhh. Itll be all right. Well go home together. Youll see, itll be all 
right. 

 

His voice was muffled against my chest, but I heard the panic in it. Please 
promise you wont! Oh God, Amir agha! Please promise you wont! 

 

How could I promise? I held him against me, held him tightly, and rocked badk 
and forth. He wept into my shirt until his tears dried, until his shaking 
stopped and his frantic pleas dwindled to indecipherable mumbles. I waited, 
rocked him until his breathing slowed and his body slackened. I remembered 
something I had read somewhere a long time ago: Thats how children deal with 
terror. They fall asleep. 

 

I carried him to his bed, set him down. Then I lay in my own bed, looking out 
the window at the purple sky over Islamabad. 

 

 

THE SKY WAS A DEEP BLACK when the phone jolted me from sleep. I rubbed my eyes 
and turned on the bedside lamp. It was a little past 10:30 P.M.; Id been 
sleeping for almost three hours. I picked up the phone. Hello? 

 

Call from America. Mr. Fayyazs bored voice. 

 

Thank you, I said. The bathroom light was on; Sohrab was taking his nightly 
bath. A couple of clicks and then Soraya: 

 

Salaam! She sounded excited. 

 

How did the meeting go with the lawyer? 

 

I told her what Omar Faisal had suggested. Well, you can forget about it, she 
said. We wont have to do that. 

 

I sat up. Rawsti? Why, whats up? 

 

I heard back from Kaka Sharif. He said the key was getting Sohrab into the 
country. Once hes in, there are ways of keeping him here. So he made a few 
calls to his INS friends. He called me back tonight and said he was almost 
certain he could get Sohrab a humanitarian visa. 

 

No kidding? I said. Oh thank God! Good ol Sharifjan! 

 

I know. Anyway, well serve as the sponsors. It should all happen pretty 
quickly. He said the visa would be good for a year, plenty of time to apply for 
an adoption petition. 

 

Its really going to happen, Soraya, huh? 


 

It looks like it, she said. She sounded happy. I told her I loved her and she 
said she loved me back. I hung up. 

 

Sohrab! I called, rising from my bed. I have great news. I knocked on the 
bathroom door. Sohrab! Soraya jan just called from California. We wont have to 
put you in the orphanage, Sohrab. Were going to America, you and I. Did you 
hear me? Were going to America! 

 

I pushed the door open. Stepped into the bathroom. 

 

Suddenly I was on my knees, screaming. Screaming through my clenched teeth. 
Screaming until I thought my throat would rip and my chest explode. 

 

Later, they said I was still screaming when the ambulance arrived. 

 

TWENTY-FIVE 

 

They wont let me in. 

 

I see them wheel him through a set of double doors and I follow. I burst through 
the doors, the smell of iodine and peroxide hits me, but all I have time to see 
is two men wearing surgical caps and a woman in green huddling over a gurney. A 
white sheet spills over the side of the gurney and brushes against grimy 
checkered tiles. A pair of small, bloody feet poke out from under the sheet and 
I see that the big toenail on the left foot is chipped. Then a tall, thickset 
man in blue presses his palm against my chest and hes pushing me back out 
through the doors, his wedding band cold on my skin. I shove forward and I curse 
him, but he says you cannot be here, he says it in English, his voice polite but 
firm. You must wait, he says, leading me back to the waiting area, and now the 
double doors swing shut behind him with a sigh and all I see is the top of the 
mens surgical caps through the doors narrow rectangular windows. 

 

He leaves me in a wide, windowless corridor crammed with people sitting on 
metallic folding chairs set along the walls, others on the thin frayed carpet. I 
want to scream again, and I remember the last time I felt this way, riding with 
Baba in the tank of the fuel truck, buried in the dark with the other refugees. 
I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality rise up like a cloud 
and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, 
over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of 
air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away. There will be no other 
reality tonight. I close my eyes and my nostrils fill with the smells of the 
corridor, sweat and ammonia, rubbing alcohol and curry. On the ceiling, moths 
fling themselves at the dull gray light tubes running the length of the corridor 
and I hear the papery flapping of their wings. I hear chatter, muted sobbing, 
sniffling, someone moaning, someone else sighing, elevator doors opening with a 
bing, the operator paging someone in Urdu. 

 

I open my eyes again and I know what I have to do. I look around, my heart a 
jackhammer in my chest, blood thudding in my ears. There is a dark little supply 
room to my left. In it, I find what I need. It will do. I grab a white bedsheet 
from the pile of folded linens and carry it back to the corridor. I see a nurse 
talking to a policeman near the restroom. I take the nurses elbow and pull, I 
want to know which way is west. She doesnt understand and the lines on her face 
deepen when she frowns. My throat aches and my eyes sting with sweat, each 
breath is like inhaling fire, and I think I am weeping. I ask again. I beg. The 
policeman is the one who points. 


 

I throw my makeshift _jai-namaz_, my prayer rug, on the floor and I get on my 
knees, lower my forehead to the ground, my tears soaking through the sheet. I 
bow to the west. Then I remember I havent prayed for over fifteen years. I have 
long forgotten the words. But it doesnt matter, I will utter those few words I 
still remember: ??La iflaha ii Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah. There is no God 
but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger. I see now that Baba was wrong, there is 
a God, there always had been. I see Him here, in the eyes of the people in this 
corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who 
have lost God will find Him, not the white masjid with its bright diamond lights 
and towering minarets. There is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I 
will pray that He forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive 
that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in 
my hour of need, I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent, and gracious as His 
book says He is. I bow to the west and kiss the ground and promise that I will 
do _zakat_, I will do _namaz_, I will fast during Ramadan and when Ramadan has 
passed I will go on fasting, I will commit to memory every last word of His holy 
book, and I will set on a pilgrimage to that sweltering city in the desert and 
bow before the Kabah too. I will do all of this and I will think of Him every 
day from this day on if He only grants me this one wish: My hands are stained 
with Hassans blood; I pray God doesnt let them get stained with the blood of 
his boy too. 

 

I hear a whimpering and realize it is mine, my lips are salty with the tears 
trickling down my face. I feel the eyes of everyone in this corridor on me and 
still I bow to the west. I pray. I pray that my sins have not caught up with me 
the way Id always feared they would. 

 

 

A STARLESS, BLACK NIGHT falls over Islamabad. Its a few hours later and I am 
sitting now on the floor of a tiny lounge off the corridor that leads to the 
emergency ward. Before me is a dull brown coffee table cluttered with newspapers 
and dog-eared magazines--an April 1996 issue of Time; a Pakistani newspaper 
showing the face of a young boy who was hit and killed by a train the week 
before; an entertainment magazine with smiling Hollywood actors on its glossy 
cover. There is an old woman wearing a jade green shalwar-kameez and a crocheted 
shawl nodding off in a wheelchair across from me. Every once in a while, she 
stirs awake and mutters a prayer in Arabic. I wonder tiredly whose prayers will 
be heard tonight, hers or mine. I picture Sohrabs face, the pointed meaty chin, 
his small seashell ears, his slanting bambooleaf eyes so much like his fathers. 
A sorrow as black as the night outside invades me, and I feel my throat 
clamping. 

 

I need air. 

 

I get up and open the windows. The air coming through the screen is musty and 
hot--it smells of overripe dates and dung. I force it into my lungs in big 
heaps, but it doesnt clear the clamping feeling in my chest. I drop back on the 
floor. I pick up the Time magazine and flip through the pages. But I cant read, 
cant focus on anything. So I toss it on the table and go back to staring at the 
zigzagging pattern of the cracks on the cement floor, at the cobwebs on the 
ceiling where the walls meet, at the dead flies littering the windowsill. 
Mostly, I stare at the clock on the wall. Its just past 4 A.M. and I have been 
shut out of the room with the swinging double doors for over five hours now. I 
still havent heard any news. 

 


The floor beneath me begins to feel like part of my body, and my breathing is 
growing heavier, slower. I want to sleep, shut my eyes and lie my head down on 
this cold, dusty floor. Drift off. When I wake up, maybe I will discover that 
everything I saw in the hotel bathroom was part of a dream: the water drops 
dripping from the faucet and landing with a plink into the bloody bathwater; the 
left arm dangling over the side of the tub, the blood-soaked razor sitting on 
the toilet tank--the same razor I had shaved with the day before--and his eyes, 
still half open but light less. That more than anything. I want to forget the 
eyes. 

 

Soon, sleep comes and I let it take me. I dream of things I cant remember 
later. 

 

 

SOMEONE IS TAPPING ME on the shoulder. I open my eyes. There is a man kneeling 
beside me. He is wearing a cap like the men behind the swinging double doors and 
a paper surgical mask over his mouth--my heart sinks when I see a drop of blood 
on the mask. He has taped a picture of a doe-eyed little girl to his beeper. He 
unsnaps his mask and Im glad I dont have to look at Sohrabs blood anymore. 
His skin is dark like the imported Swiss chocolate Hassan and I used to buy from 
the bazaar in Shar-e-Nau; he has thinning hair and hazel eyes topped with curved 
eyelashes. In a British accent, he tells me his name is Dr. Nawaz, and suddenly 
I want to be away from this man, because I dont think I can bear to hear what 
he has come to tell me. He says the boy had cut himself deeply and had lost a 
great deal of blood and my mouth begins to mutter that prayer again: 

 

La illaha il Allah, Muhammad u rasul ullah. 

They had to transfuse several units of red cells-- How will I tell Soraya? 

Twice, they had to revive him--I will do _namaz_, I will do _zakat_. 

They would have lost him if his heart hadnt been young and strong-- 

I will fast. 

He is alive. 

 

Dr. Nawaz smiles. It takes me a moment to register what he has just said. Then 
he says more but I dont hear him. Because I have taken his hands and I have 
brought them up to my face. I weep my relief into this strangers small, meaty 
hands and he says nothing now. He waits. 

 

 

THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT is L-shaped and dim, a jumble of bleeping monitors and 
whirring machines. Dr. Nawaz leads me between two rows of beds separated by 
white plastic curtains. Sohrabs bed is the last one around the corner, the one 
nearest the nurses station where two nurses in green surgical scrubs are 
jotting notes on clipboards, chatting in low voices. On the silent ride up the 
elevator with Dr. Nawaz, I had thought Id weep again when I saw Sohrab. But 
when I sit on the chair at the foot of his bed, looking at his white face 
through the tangle of gleaming plastic tubes and IV lines, I am dry-eyed. 
Watching his chest rise and fall to the rhythm of the hissing ventilator, a 
curious numbness washes over me, the same numbness a man might feel seconds 
after he has swerved his car and barely avoided a head-on collision. 

 

I doze off, and, when I wake up, I see the sun rising in a buttermilk sky 
through the window next to the nurses station. The light slants into the room, 
aims my shadow toward Sohrab. He hasnt moved. 

 

Youd do well to get some sleep, a nurse says to me. I dont recognize her--
there must have been a shift change while Id napped. She takes me to another 


lounge, this one just outside the ICU. Its empty. She hands me a pillow and a 
hospital-issue blanket. I thank her and lie on the vinyl sofa in the corner of 
the lounge. I fall asleep almost immediately. 

 

I dream I am back in the lounge downstairs. Dr. Nawaz walks in and I rise to 
meet him. He takes off his paper mask, his hands suddenly whiter than I 
remembered, his nails manicured, he has 

neatly parted hair, and I see he is not Dr. Nawaz at all but Raymond Andrews, 
the little embassy man with the potted tomatoes. Andrews cocks his head. Narrows 
his eyes. 

 

 

IN THE DAYTIME, the hospital was a maze of teeming, angled hallways, a blur of 
blazing-white overhead fluorescence. I came to know its layout, came to know 
that the fourth-floor button in the east wing elevator didnt light up, that the 
door to the mens room on that same floor was jammed and you had to ram your 
shoulder into it to open it. I came to know that hospital life has a rhythm, the 
flurry of activity just before the morning shift change, the midday hustle, the 
stillness and quiet of the late-night hours interrupted occasionally by a blur 
of doctors and nurses rushing to revive someone. I kept vigil at Sohrabs 
bedside in the daytime and wandered through the hospitals serpentine corridors 
at night, listening to my shoe heels clicking on the tiles, thinking of what I 
would say to Sohrab when he woke up. Id end up back in the ICU, by the 
whooshing ventilator beside his bed, and Id be no closer to knowing. 

 

After three days in the ICU, they withdrew the breathing tube and transferred 
him to a ground-level bed. I wasnt there when they moved him. I had gone back 
to the hotel that night to get some sleep and ended up tossing around in bed all 
night. In the morning, I tried to not look at the bathtub. It was clean now, 
someone had wiped off the blood, spread new floor mats on the floor, and 
scrubbed the walls. But I couldnt stop myself from sitting on its cool, 
porcelain edge. I pictured Sohrab filling it with warm water. Saw him 
undressing. Saw him twisting the razor handle and opening the twin safety 
latches on the head, sliding the blade out, holding it between his thumb and 
forefinger. I pictured him lowering himself into the water, lying there for a 
while, his eyes closed. I wondered what his last thought had been as he had 
raised the blade and brought it down. 

 

I was exiting the lobby when the hotel manager, Mr. Fayyaz, caught up with me. 
I am very sorry for you, he said, but I am asking for you to leave my hotel, 
please. This is bad for my business, very bad. 

 

I told him I understood and I checked out. He didnt charge me for the three 
days Id spent at the hospital. Waiting for a cab outside the hotel lobby, I 
thought about what Mr. Fayyaz had said to me that night wed gone looking for 
Sohrab: The thing about you Afghanis is that... well, you people are a little 
reckless. I had laughed at him, but now I wondered. Had I actually gone to sleep 
after I had given Sohrab the news he feared most? 

 

When I got in the cab, I asked the driver if he knew any Persian bookstores. He 
said there was one a couple of kilometers south. We stopped there on the way to 
the hospital. 

 

 

SOHRABS NEW ROOM had cream-colored walls, chipped, dark gray moldings, and 
glazed tiles that might have once been white. He shared the room with a teenaged 
Punjabi boy who, I later learned from one of the nurses, had broken his leg when 


he had slipped off the roof of a moving bus. His leg was in a cast, raised and 
held bytongs strapped to several weights. 

 

Sohrabs bed was next to the window, the lower half lit by the late-morning 
sunlight streaming through the rectangular panes. A uniformed security guard was 
standing at the window, munching on cooked watermelon seeds--Sohrab was under 
twenty-four hours-a-day suicide watch. Hospital protocol, Dr. Nawaz had informed 
me. The guard tipped his hat when he saw me and left the room. 

 

Sohrab was wearing short-sleeved hospital pajamas and lying on his back, blanket 
pulled to his chest, face turned to the window. I thought he was sleeping, but 
when I scooted a chair up to his bed his eyelids fluttered and opened. He looked 
at me, then looked away. He was so pale, even with all the blood they had given 
him, and there was a large purple bruise in the crease of his right arm. 

 

How are you? I said. 

 

He didnt answer. He was looking through the window at a fenced-in sandbox and 
swing set in the hospital garden. There was an arch-shaped trellis near the 
playground, in the shadow of a row of hibiscus trees, a few green vines climbing 
up the timber lattice. A handful of kids were playing with buckets and pails in 
the sand box. The sky was a cloudless blue that day, and I saw a tiny jet 
leaving behind twin white trails. I turned back to Sohrab. I spoke to Dr. Nawaz 
a few minutes ago and he thinks youll be discharged in a couple of days. Thats 
good news, nay? 

 

Again I was met by silence. The Punjabi boy at the other end of the room stirred 
in his sleep and moaned something. I like your room, I said, trying not to 
look at Sohrabs bandaged wrists. Its bright, and you have a view. Silence. A 
few more awkward minutes passed, and a light sweat formed on my brow, my upper 
lip. I pointed to the untouched bowl of green pea aush on his nightstand, the 
unused plastic spoon. You should try to eat some thing. Gain your quwat back, 
your strength. Do you want me to help you? 

 

He held my glance, then looked away, his face set like stone. His eyes were 
still lightless, I saw, vacant, the way I had found them when I had pulled him 
out of the bathtub. I reached into the paper bag between my feet and took out 
the used copy of the Shah namah I had bought at the Persian bookstore. I turned 
the cover so it faced Sohrab. I used to read this to your father when we were 
children. Wed go up the hill by our house and sit beneath the pomegranate... I 
trailed off. Sohrab was looking through the window again. I forced a smile. 
Your fathers favorite was the story of Rostam and Sohrab and thats how you 
got your name, I know you know that. I paused, feeling a bit like an idiot. 
Any way, he said in his letter that it was your favorite too, so I thought Id 
read you some of it. Would you like that? 

 

Sohrab closed his eyes. Covered them with his arm, the one with the bruise. 

 

I flipped to the page I had bent in the taxicab. Here we go, I said, wondering 
for the first time what thoughts had passed through Hassans head when he had 
finally read the _Shahnamah_ for himself and discovered that I had deceived him 
all those times. I cleared my throat and read. Give ear unto the combat of 
Sohrab against Rostam, though it be a tale replete with tears, I began. It 
came about that on a certain day Rostam rose from his couch and his mind was 
filled with forebodings. He bethought him... I read him most of chapter 1, up 
to the part where the young warrior Sohrab comes to his mother, Tahmineh, the 
princess of Samen gan, and demands to know the identity of his father. I closed 


the book. Do you want me to go on? There are battles coming up, remember? 
Sohrab leading his army to the White Castle in Iran? Should I read on? 

 

He shook his head slowly. I dropped the book back in the paper bag. Thats 
fine, I said, encouraged that he had responded at all. Maybe we can continue 
tomorrow. How do you feel? 

 

Sohrabs mouth opened and a hoarse sound came out. Dr. Nawaz had told me that 
would happen, on account of the breathing tube they had slid through his vocal 
cords. He licked his lips and tried again. Tired. 

 

I know. Dr. Nawaz said that was to be expected-- He was shaking his head. 

 

What, Sohrab? 

 

He winced when he spoke again in that husky voice, barely above a whisper. 
Tired of everything. 

 

I sighed and slumped in my chair. There was a band of sunlight on the bed 
between us, and, for just a moment, the ashen gray face looking at me from the 
other side of it was a dead ringer for Hassans, not the Hassan I played marbles 
with until the mullah belted out the evening azan and Ali called us home, not 
the Hassan I chased down our hill as the sun dipped behind clay rooftops in the 
west, but the Hassan I saw alive for the last time, dragging his belongings 
behind Ali in a warm summer downpour, stuffing them in the trunk of Babas car 
while I watched through the rain-soaked window of my room. 

 

He gave a slow shake of his head. Tired of everything, he repeated. 

 

What can I do, Sohrab? Please tell me. 

 

I want-- he began. He winced again and brought his hand to his throat as if to 
clear whatever was blocking his voice. My eyes were drawn again to his wrist 
wrapped tightly with white gauze bandages. I want my old life back, he 
breathed. 

 

Oh, Sohrab. 

 

I want Father and Mother jan. I want Sasa. I want to play with Rahim Khan sahib 
in the garden. I want to live in our house again. He dragged his forearm across 
his eyes. I want my old life back. 

 

I didnt know what to say, where to look, so I gazed down at my hands. Your old 
life, I thought. My old life too. I played in the same yard, Sohrab. I lived in 
the same house. But the grass is dead and a strangers jeep is parked in the 
driveway of our house, pissing oil all over the asphalt. Our old life is gone, 
Sohrab, and everyone in it is either dead or dying. Its just you and me now. 
Just you and me. 

 

I cant give you that, I said. I wish you hadnt-- 

 

Please dont say that. 

 

--wish you hadnt... I wish you had left me in the water. 

 

Dont ever say that, Sohrab, I said, leaning forward. I cant bear to hear 
you talk like that. I touched his shoulder and he flinched. Drew away. I 


dropped my hand, remembering ruefully how in the last days before Id broken my 
promise to him he had finally become at ease with my touch. Sohrab, I cant 
give you your old life back, I wish to God I could. But I can take you with me. 
That was what I was coming in the bathroom to tell you. You have a visa to go to 
America, to live with me and my wife. Its true. I promise. 

 

He sighed through his nose and closed his eyes. I wished I hadnt said those 
last two words. You know, Ive done a lot of things I regret in my life, I 
said, and maybe none more than going back on the promise I made you. But that 
will never happen again, and I am so very profoundly sorry. I ask for your 
bakhshesh, your forgiveness. Can you do that? Can you forgive me? Can you 
believe me? I dropped my voice. Will you come with me? 

 

As I waited for his reply, my mind flashed back to a winter day from long ago, 
Hassan and I sitting on the snow beneath a leafless sour cherry tree. I had 
played a cruel game with Hassan that day, toyed with him, asked him if he would 
chew dirt to prove his loyalty to me. Now I was the one under the microscope, 
the one who had to prove my worthiness. I deserved this. 

 

Sohrab rolled to his side, his back to me. He didnt say anything for a long 
time. And then, just as I thought he might have drifted to sleep, he said with a 
croak, I am so khasta. So very tired. I sat by his bed until he fell asleep. 
Something was lost between Sohrab and me. Until my meeting with the lawyer, Omar 
Faisal, a light of hope had begun to enter Sohrabs eyes like a timid guest. Now 
the light was gone, the guest had fled, and I wondered when it would dare 
return. I wondered how long before Sohrab smiled again. How long before he 
trusted me. If ever. 

 

So I left the room and went looking for another hotel, unaware that almost a 
year would pass before I would hear Sohrab speak another word. 

 

 

IN THE END, Sohrab never accepted my offer. Nor did he decline it. But he knew 
that when the bandages were removed and the hospital garments returned, he was 
just another homeless Hazara orphan. What choice did he have? Where could he go? 
So what I took as a yes from him was in actuality more of a quiet surrender, not 
so much an acceptance as an act of relinquishment by one too weary to decide, 
and far too tired to believe. What he yearned for was his old life. What he got 
was me and America. Not that it was such a bad fate, everything considered, but 
I couldnt tell him that. Perspective was a luxury when your head was constantly 
buzzing with a swarm of demons. 

 

And so it was that, about a week later, we crossed a strip of warm, black tarmac 
and I brought Hassans son from Afghanistan to America, lifting him from the 
certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty. 

 

 

ONE DAY, maybe around 1983 or 1984, I was at a video store in Fremont. I was 
standing in the Westerns section when a guy next to me, sipping Coke from a 7-
Eleven cup, pointed to _The Magnificent Seven_ and asked me if I had seen it. 
Yes, thirteen times, I said. Charles Bronson dies in it, so do James Coburn 
and Robert Vaughn. He gave me a pinch-faced look, as if I had just spat in his 
soda. Thanks a lot, man, he said, shaking his head and muttering something as 
he walked away. That was when I learned that, in America, you dont reveal the 
ending of the movie, and if you do, you will be scorned and made to apologize 
profusely for having committed the sin of Spoiling the End. 

 


In Afghanistan, the ending was all that mattered. When Hassan and I came home 
after watching a Hindi film at Cinema Zainab, what Ali, Rahim Khan, Baba, or the 
myriad of Babas friends--second and third cousins milling in and out of the 
house--wanted to know was this: Did the Girl in the film find happiness? Did the 
bacheh film, the Guy in the film, become katnyab and fulfill his dreams, or was 
he nah-kam, doomed to wallow in failure? 

 

Was there happiness at the end, they wanted to know. 

 

If someone were to ask me today whether the story of Hassan, Sohrab, and me ends 
with happiness, I wouldnt know what to say. 

 

Does anybodys? 

 

After all, life is not a Hindi movie. Zendagi migzara, Afghans like to say: Life 
goes on, unmindful of beginning, end, kamyab, nah-kam, crisis or catharsis, 
moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of kochis. 

 

I wouldnt know how to answer that question. Despite the matter of last Sundays 
tiny miracle. 

 

 

WE ARRIVED HOME about seven months ago, on a warm day in August 2001. Soraya 
picked us up at the airport. I had never been away from Soraya for so long, and 
when she locked her arms around my neck, when I smelled apples in her hair, I 
realized how much I had missed her. Youre still the morning sun to my yelda, 
I whispered. 

 

What? 

 

Never mind. I kissed her ear. 

 

After, she knelt to eye level with Sohrab. She took his hand and smiled at him. 
Sataam, Sohrab jan, Im your Khala Soraya. Weve all been waiting for you. 

 

Looking at her smiling at Sohrab, her eyes tearing over a little, I had a 
glimpse of the mother she might have been, had her own womb not betrayed her. 

 

Sohrab shifted on his feet and looked away. 

 

 

SORAYA HAD TURNED THE STUDY upstairs into a bedroom for Sohrab. She led him in 
and he sat on the edge of the bed. The sheets showed brightly colored kites 
flying in indigo blue skies. She had made inscriptions on the wall by the 
closet, feet and inches to measure a childs growing height. At the foot of the 
bed, I saw a wicker basket stuffed with books, a locomotive, a water color set. 

 

Sohrab was wearing the plain white T-shirt and new denims I had bought him in 
Islamabad just before wed left--the shirt hung loosely over his bony, slumping 
shoulders. The color still hadnt seeped back into his face, save for the halo 
of dark circles around his eyes. He was looking at us now in the impassive way 
he looked at the plates of boiled rice the hospital orderly placed before him. 

 

Soraya asked if he liked his room and I noticed that she was trying to avoid 
looking at his wrists and that her eyes kept swaying back to those jagged pink 
lines. Sohrab lowered his head. Hid his hands under his thighs and said nothing. 


Then he simply lay his head on the pillow. Less than five minutes later, Soraya 
and I watching from the doorway, he was snoring. 

 

We went to bed, and Soraya fell asleep with her head on my chest. In the 
darkness of our room, I lay awake, an insomniac once more. Awake. And alone with 
demons of my own. Sometime in the middle of the night, I slid out of bed and 
went to Sohrabs room. I stood over him, looking down, and saw some thing 
protruding from under his pillow. I picked it up. Saw it was Rahim Khans 
Polaroid, the one I had given to Sohrab the night we had sat by the Shah Faisal 
Mosque. The one of Hassan and Sohrab standing side by side, squinting in the 
light of the sun, and smiling like the world was a good and just place. I 
wondered how long Sohrab had lain in bed staring at the photo, turning it in his 
hands. 

 

I looked at the photo. Your father was a man torn between two halves, Rahim Khan 
had said in his letter. I had been the entitled half, the society-approved, 
legitimate half, the unwitting embodiment of Babas guilt. I looked at Hassan, 
showing those two missing front teeth, sunlight slanting on his face. Babas 
other half. The unentitled, unprivileged half. The half who had inherited what 
had been pure and noble in Baba. The half that, maybe, in the most secret 
recesses of his heart, Baba had thought of as his true son. 

 

I slipped the picture back where I had found it. Then I realized something: That 
last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrabs door, I wondered if 
that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain 
gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of 
the night. 

 

 

THE GENERAL AND KHALA JAMILA came over for dinner the following night. Khala 
Jamila, her hair cut short and a darker shade of red than usual, handed Soraya 
the plate of almondtopped maghout she had brought for dessert. She saw Sohrab 
and beamed. _Mashallah_! Soraya jan told us how khoshteep you were, but you are 
even more handsome in person, Sohrab jan. She handed him a blue turtleneck 
sweater. I knitted this for you, she said. For next winter. _Inshallah_, it 
will fit you. 

 

Sohrab took the sweater from her. 

 

Hello, young man, was all the general said, leaning with both hands on his 
cane, looking at Sohrab the way one might study a bizarre decorative item at 
someones house. 

 

I answered, and answered again, Khala Jamilas questions about my injuries--Id 
asked Soraya to tell them I had been mugged--reassuring her that I had no 
permanent damage, that the wires would come out in a few weeks so Id be able to 
eat her cooking again, that, yes, I would try rubbing rhubarb juice and sugar on 
my scars to make them fade faster. 

 

The general and I sat in the living room and sipped wine while Soraya and her 
mother set the table. I told him about Kabul and the Taliban. He listened and 
nodded, his cane on his lap, and tsked when I told him of the man I had spotted 
selling his artificial leg. I made no mention of the executions at Ghazi Stadium 
and Assef. He asked about Rahim Khan, whom he said he had met in Kabul a few 
times, and shook his head solemnly when I told him of Rahim Khans illness. But 
as we spoke, I caught his eyes drifting again and again to Sohrab sleeping on 


the couch. As if we were skirting around the edge of what he really wanted to 
know. 

 

The skirting finally came to an end over dinner when the general put down his 
fork and said, So, Amir jan, youre going to tell us why you have brought back 
this boy with you? 

 

Iqbal jan! What sort of question is that? Khala Jamila said. 

 

"While youre busy knitting sweaters, my dear, I have to deal with the 
communitys perception of our family. People will ask. They will want to know 
why there is a Hazara boy living with our daughter. What do I tell them? 

 

Soraya dropped her spoon. Turned on her father. You can tell them-- 

 

Its okay, Soraya, I said, taking her hand. Its okay. General Sahib is quite 
right. People will ask. 

 

Amir-- she began. 

 

Its all right. I turned to the general. You see, General Sahib, my father 
slept with his servants wife. She bore him a son named Hassan. Hassan is dead 
now. That boy sleeping on the couch is Hassans son. Hes my nephew. Thats what 
you tell people when they ask. 

 

They were all staring at me. 

 

And one more thing, General Sahib, I said. You will never again refer to him 
as Hazara boy in my presence. He has a name and its Sohrab. 

 

No one said anything for the remainder of the meal. 

 

 

IT WOULD BE ERRONEOUS to say Sohrab was quiet. Quiet is peace. Tranquillity. 
Quiet is turning down the VOLUME knob on life. 

 

Silence is pushing the OFF button. Shutting it down. All of it. 

 

Sohrabs silence wasnt the self-imposed silence of those with convictions, of 
protesters who seek to speak their cause by not speaking at all. It was the 
silence of one who has taken cover in a dark place, curled up all the edges and 
tucked them under. 

 

He didnt so much live with us as occupy space. And precious little of it. 
Sometimes, at the market, or in the park, Id notice how other people hardly 
seemed to even see him, like he wasnt there at all. Id look up from a book and 
realize Sohrab had entered the room, had sat across from me, and I hadnt 
noticed. He walked like he was afraid to leave behind footprints. He moved as if 
not to stir the air around him. Mostly, he slept. 

 

Sohrabs silence was hard on Soraya too. Over that long-distance line to 
Pakistan, Soraya had told me about the things she was planning for Sohrab. 
Swimming classes. Soccer. Bowling league. Now shed walk past Sohrabs room and 
catch a glimpse of books sitting unopened in the wicker basket, the growth chart 
unmarked, the jigsaw puzzle unassembled, each item a reminder of a life that 
could have been. A reminder of a dream that was wilting even as it was budding. 
But she hadnt been alone. Id had my own dreams for Sohrab. 


 

While Sohrab was silent, the world was not. One Tuesday morning last September, 
the Twin Towers came crumbling down and, overnight, the world changed. The 
American flag suddenly appeared everywhere, on the antennae of yellow cabs 
weaving around traffic, on the lapels of pedestrians walking the sidewalks in a 
steady stream, even on the grimy caps of San Franciscos pan handlers sitting 
beneath the awnings of small art galleries and open-fronted shops. One day I 
passed Edith, the homeless woman who plays the accordion every day on the corner 
of Sutter and Stockton, and spotted an American flag sticker on the accordion 
case at her feet. 

 

Soon after the attacks, America bombed Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance moved 
in, and the Taliban scurried like rats into the caves. Suddenly, people were 
standing in grocery store lines and talking about the cities of my childhood, 
Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif. When I was very little, Baba took Hassan and me 
to Kunduz. I dont remember much about the trip, except sitting in the shade of 
an acacia tree with Baba and Hassan, taking turns sipping fresh watermelon juice 
from a clay pot and seeing who could spit the seeds farther. Now Dan Rather, Tom 
Brokaw, and people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for 
Kunduz, the Talibans last stronghold in the north. That December, Pashtuns, 
Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras gathered in Bonn and, under the watchful eye of the 
UN, began the process that might someday end over twenty years of unhappiness in 
their watan. Hamid Karzais caracul hat and green chapan became famous. 

 

Sohrab sleepwalked through it all. 

 

Soraya and I became involved in Afghan projects, as much out of a sense of civil 
duty as the need for something--anything--to fill the silence upstairs, the 
silence that sucked everything in like a black hole. I had never been the active 
type before, but when a man named Kabir, a former Afghan ambassador to Sofia, 
called and asked if I wanted to help him with a hospital project, I said yes. 
The small hospital had stood near the Afghan-Pakistani border and had a small 
surgical unit that treated Afghan refugees with land mine injuries. But it had 
closed down due to a lack of funds. I became the project manager, Soraya my 
comanager. I spent most of my days in the study, e-mailing people around the 
world, applying for grants, organizing fund-raising events. And telling myself 
that bringing Sohrab here had been the right thing to do. 

 

The year ended with Soraya and me on the couch, blanket spread over our legs, 
watching Dick Clark on TV. People cheered and kissed when the silver ball 
dropped, and confetti whitened the screen. In our house, the new year began much 
the same way the last one had ended. In silence. 

 

 

THEN, FOUR DAYS AGO, on a cool rainy day in March 2002, a small, wondrous thing 
happened. 

 

I took Soraya, Khala Jamila, and Sohrab to a gathering of Afghans at Lake 
Elizabeth Park in Fremont. The general had finally been summoned to Afghanistan 
the month before for a ministry position, and had flown there two weeks earlier-
-he had left behind his gray suit and pocket watch. The plan was for Khala 
Jamila to join him in a few months once he had settled. She missed him terribly-
-and worried about his health there--and we had insisted she stay with us for a 
while. 

 

The previous Thursday, the first day of spring, had been the Afghan New Years 
Day--the Sawl-e-Nau--and Afghans in the Bay Area had planned celebrations 


throughout the East Bay and the peninsula. Kabir, Soraya, and I had an 
additional reason to rejoice: Our little hospital in Rawalpindi had opened the 
week before, not the surgical unit, just the pediatric clinic. But it was a good 
start, we all agreed. 

 

It had been sunny for days, but Sunday morning, as I swung my legs out of bed, I 
heard raindrops pelting the window. Afghan luck, I thought. Snickered. I prayed 
morning _namaz_ while Soraya slept--I didnt have to consult the prayer pamphlet 
I had obtained from the mosque anymore; the verses came naturally now, 
effortlessly. 

 

We arrived around noon and found a handful of people taking cover under a large 
rectangular plastic sheet mounted on six poles spiked to the ground. Someone was 
already frying bolani; steam rose from teacups and a pot of cauliflower aush. A 
scratchy old Ahmad Zahir song was blaring from a cassette player. I smiled a 
little as the four of us rushed across the soggy grass field, Soraya and I in 
the lead, Khala Jamila in the middle, Sohrab behind us, the hood of his yellow 
raincoat bouncing on his back. 

 

Whats so funny? Soraya said, holding a folded newspaper over her head. 

 

You can take Afghans out of Paghman, but you cant take Paghman out of 
Afghans, I said. 

 

We stooped under the makeshift tent. Soraya and Khala Jamila drifted toward an 
overweight woman frying spinach bolani. Sohrab stayed under the canopy for a 
moment, then stepped back out into the rain, hands stuffed in the pockets of his 
raincoat, his hair--now brown and straight like Hassans--plastered against his 
scalp. He stopped near a coffee-colored puddle and stared at it. No one seemed 
to notice. No one called him back in. With time, the queries about our adopted--
and decidedly eccentric--little boy had mercifully ceased, and, considering how 
tactless Afghan queries can be sometimes, that was a considerable relief. People 
stopped asking why he never spoke. Why he didnt play with the other kids. And 
best of all, they stopped suffocating us with their exaggerated empathy, their 
slow head shaking, their tsk tsks, their Oh gung bichara. Oh, poor little mute 
one. The novelty had worn off. Like dull wallpaper, Sohrab had blended into the 
background. 

 

I shook hands with Kabir, a small, silver-haired man. He introduced me to a 
dozen men, one of them a retired teacher, another an engineer, a former 
architect, a surgeon who was now running a hot dog stand in Hayward. They all 
said theyd known Baba in Kabul, and they spoke about him respectfully. In one 
way or another, he had touched all their lives. The men said I was lucky to have 
had such a great man for a father. 

 

We chatted about the difficult and maybe thankless job Karzai had in front of 
him, about the upcoming Loya jirga, and the kings imminent return to his 
homeland after twenty-eights years of exile. I remembered the night in 1973, the 
night Zahir Shahs cousin overthrew him; I remembered gunfire and the sky 
lighting up silver--Ali had taken me and Hassan in his arms, told us not to be 
afraid, that they were just shooting ducks. 

 

Then someone told a Mullah Nasruddin joke and we were all laughing. You know, 
your father was a funny man too, Kabir said. 

 

He was, wasnt he? I said, smiling, remembering how, soon after we arrived in 
the U.S., Baba started grumbling about American flies. Hed sit at the kitchen 


table with his flyswatter, watch the flies darting from wall to wall, buzzing 
here, buzzing there, harried and rushed. In this country, even flies are 
pressed for time, hed groan. How I had laughed. I smiled at the memory now. 

 

By three oclock, the rain had stopped and the sky was a curdled gray burdened 
with lumps of clouds. A cool breeze blew through the park. More families turned 
up. Afghans greeted each other, hugged, kissed, exchanged food. Someone lighted 
coal in a barbecue and soon the smell of garlic and morgh kabob flooded my 
senses. There was music, some new singer I didnt know, and the giggling of 
children. I saw Sohrab, still in his yellow raincoat, leaning against a garbage 
pail, staring across the park at the empty batting cage. 

 

A little while later, as I was chatting with the former surgeon, who told me he 
and Baba had been classmates in eighth grade, Soraya pulled on my sleeve. Amir, 
look! 

 

She was pointing to the sky. A half-dozen kites were flying high, speckles of 
bright yellow, red, and green against the gray sky. 

 

Check it out, Soraya said, and this time she was pointing to a guy selling 
kites from a stand nearby. 

 

Hold this, I said. I gave my cup of tea to Soraya. I excused myself and walked 
over to the kite stand, my shoes squishing on the wet grass. I pointed to a 
yellow seh-parcha. Sawl-e-nau mubabrak, the kite seller said, taking the 
twenty and handing me the kite and a wooden spool of glass tar. I thanked him 
and wished him a Happy New Year too. I tested the string the way Hassan and I 
used to, by holding it between my thumb and forefinger and pulling it. It 
reddened with blood and the kite seller smiled. I smiled back. 

 

I took the kite to where Sohrab was standing, still leaning against the garbage 
pail, arms crossed on his chest. He was looking up at the sky. 

 

Do you like the seh-parcha? I said, holding up the kite by the ends of the 
cross bars. His eyes shifted from the sky to me, to the kite, then back. A few 
rivulets of rain trickled from his hair, down his face. 

 

I read once that, in Malaysia, they use kites to catch fish, I said. Ill bet 
you didnt know that. They tie a fishing line to it and fly it beyond the 
shallow waters, so it doesnt cast a shadow and scare the fish. And in ancient 
China, generals used to fly kites over battlefields to send messages to their 
men. Its true. Im not slipping you a trick. I showed him my bloody thumb. 
Nothing wrong with the tar either. 

 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Soraya watching us from the tent. Hands 
tensely dug in her armpits. Unlike me, shed gradually abandoned her attempts at 
engaging him. The unanswered questions, the blank stares, the silence, it was 
all too painful. She had shifted to Holding Pattern, waiting for a green light 
from Sohrab. Waiting. 

 

I wet my index finger and held it up. I remember the way your father checked 
the wind was to kick up dust with his sandal, see which way the wind blew it. He 
knew a lot of little tricks like that, I said. Lowered my finger. West, I 
think. 

 


Sohrab wiped a raindrop from his earlobe and shifted on his feet. Said nothing. 
I thought of Soraya asking me a few months ago what his voice sounded like. Id 
told her I didnt remember anymore. 

 

Did I ever tell you your father was the best kite runner in Wazir Akbar Khan? 
Maybe all of Kabul? I said, knotting the loose end of the spool tar to the 
string loop tied to the center spar. How jealous he made the neighborhood kids. 
Hed run kites and never look up at the sky, and people used to say he was 
chasing the kites shadow. But they didnt know him like I did. Your father 
wasnt chasing any shadows. He just... knew 

 

Another half-dozen kites had taken flight. People had started to gather in 
clumps, teacups in hand, eyes glued to the sky. 

 

Do you want to help me fly this? I said. 

 

Sohrabs gaze bounced from the kite to me. Back to the sky. 

 

Okay. I shrugged. Looks like Ill have to fly it tanhaii. Solo. 

 

I balanced the spool in my left hand and fed about three feet of tar. The yellow 
kite dangled at the end of it, just above the wet grass. Last chance, I said. 
But Sohrab was looking at a pair of kites tangling high above the trees. 

 

All right. Here I go. I took off running, my sneakers splashing rainwater from 
puddles, the hand clutching the kite end of the string held high above my head. 
It had been so long, so many years since Id done this, and I wondered if Id 
make a spectacle of myself. I let the spool roll in my left hand as I ran, felt 
the string cut my right hand again as it fed through. The kite was lifting 
behind my shoulder now, lifting, wheeling, and I ran harder. The spool spun 
faster and the glass string tore another gash in my right palm. I stopped and 
turned. Looked up. Smiled. High above, my kite was tilting side to side like a 
pendulum, making that old paper-bird-flapping-its-wings sound I always 
associated with winter mornings in Kabul. I hadnt flown a kite in a quarter of 
a century, but suddenly I was twelve again and all the old instincts came 
rushing back. 

 

I felt a presence next to me and looked down. It was Sohrab. Hands dug deep in 
the pockets of his raincoat. He had followed me. 

 

Do you want to try? I asked. He said nothing. But when I held the string out 
for him, his hand lifted from his pocket. Hesitated. Took the string. My heart 
quickened as I spun the spool to gather the loose string. We stood quietly side 
by side. Necks bent up. 

 

Around us, kids chased each other, slid on the grass. Someone was playing an old 
Hindi movie soundtrack now. A line of elderly men were praying afternoon _namaz_ 
on a plastic sheet spread on the ground. The air smelled of wet grass, smoke, 
and grilled meat. I wished time would stand still. 

 

Then I saw we had company. A green kite was closing in. I traced the string to a 
kid standing about thirty yards from us. He had a crew cut and a T-shirt that 
read THE ROCK RULES in bold block letters. He saw me looking at him and smiled. 
Waved. I waved back. 

 

Sohrab was handing the string back to me. 

 


Are you sure? I said, taking it. 

 

He took the spool from me. 

 

Okay, I said. Lets give him a sabagh, teach him a lesson, nay? I glanced 
over at him. The glassy, vacant look in his eyes was gone. His gaze flitted 
between our kite and the green one. His face was a little flushed, his eyes 
suddenly alert. Awake. Alive. I wondered when I had forgotten that, despite 
everything, he was still just a child. 

 

The green kite was making its move. Lets wait, I said. Well let him get a 
little closer. It dipped twice and crept toward us. Come on. Come to me, I 
said. 

 

The green kite drew closer yet, now rising a little above us, unaware of the 
trap Id set for it. Watch, Sohrab. Im going to show you one of your fathers 
favorite tricks, the old lift-and-dive. 

 

Next to me, Sohrab was breathing rapidly through his nose. The spool rolled in 
his palms, the tendons in his scarred wrists like rubab strings. Then I blinked 
and, for just a moment, the hands holding the spool were the chipped-nailed, 
calloused hands of a harelipped boy. I heard a crow cawing somewhere and I 
looked up. The park shimmered with snow so fresh, so dazzling white, it burned 
my eyes. It sprinkled soundlessly from the branches of white-clad trees. I 
smelled turnip qurina now. Dried mulberries. Sour oranges. Sawdust and walnuts. 
The muffled quiet, snow-quiet, was deafening. Then far away, across the 
stillness, a voice calling us home, the voice of a man who dragged his right 
leg. 

 

The green kite hovered directly above us now. Hes going for it. Anytime now, 
I said, my eyes flicking from Sohrab to our kite. 

 

The green kite hesitated. Held position. Then shot down. Here he comes! I 
said. 

 

I did it perfectly. After all these years. The old lift-and-dive trap. I 
loosened my grip and tugged on the string, dipping and dodging the green kite. A 
series of quick sidearm jerks and our kite shot up counterclockwise, in a half 
circle. Suddenly I was on top. The green kite was scrambling now, panic-
stricken. But it was too late. Id already slipped him Hassans trick. I pulled 
hard and our kite plummeted. I could almost feel our string sawing his. Almost 
heard the snap. 

 

Then, just like that, the green kite was spinning and wheeling out of control. 

 

Behind us, people cheered. Whistles and applause broke out. I was panting. The 
last time I had felt a rush like this was that day in the winter of 1975, just 
after I had cut the last kite, when I spotted Baba on our rooftop, clapping, 
beaming. 

 

I looked down at Sohrab. One corner of his mouth had curled up just so. 

 

A smile. 

 

Lopsided. 

 

Hardly there. 


 

But there. 

 

Behind us, kids were scampering, and a melee of screaming kite runners was 
chasing the loose kite drifting high above the trees. I blinked and the smile 
was gone. But it had been there. I had seen it. 

 

Do you want me to run that kite for you? 

 

His Adams apple rose and fell as he swallowed. The wind lifted his hair. I 
thought I saw him nod. 

 

For you, a thousand times over, I heard myself say. 

 

Then I turned and ran. 

 

It was only a smile, nothing more. It didnt make everything all right. It 
didnt make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, 
shaking in the wake of a startled birds flight. 

 

But Ill take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow 
one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting. 

 

I ran. A grown man running with a swarm of screaming children. But I didnt 
care. I ran with the wind blowing in my face, and a smile as wide as the Valley 
of Panjsher on my lips. 

 

I ran. 


